LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE SKEPTIC'S DEFENSE 



AGAINST 



All Christian or Other Priests 



BEING 



A SERIES OF MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS HAVING FOR 

THEIR MAIN OBJECT A COMPARISON OF THE 

VALUE OF SCIENCE OVER RELIGION. 



CALEB M. LANDERS. 



OF 00 1 






Rochester-, -n: Y. 

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR IN THE YEAR 
1895. 



DEDICATION. 



If the claims of the ignorant mass of 

humanity are to be considered of enough importance 

to give them a right to be instructed by one of their own class, 

this book is dedicated to them and hence not to any 

who expect to find literary style in its 

pages at the expense of truth. 

The Author. 



Copyrighted according- to Act of Congress in September, 1895, by 
Caleb M. Landers. 






PREFACE 



The following pages contain some more or less pertinent observa- 
tions and suggestions, respecting the attitude of Christian ministers, or, 
as they are more frequently called, priests, and their teachers who are 
called theologians, towards both skepticism and skeptics. It has been 
the writer's aim to adapt the language he has used to the comprehen- 
sion of the unlearned or common average people, himself being one of 
that class. I want it to be distinctly understood that I have endeavored 
to write what this book contains in such a simple way as can be under- 
stood and comprehended by the illiterate masses of my fellowmen — by 
those who, like me, have not climbed high enough to see how vast, how 
infinite are the possibilities of human learning; for it is of no use for the 
unlearned to try to comprehend such language as the learned employ to 
convey their thoughts to the unlearned. No, dear reader, I am not 
learned, and you (if you can read at all) are only a little more ignorant 
than I am. You doubtless know many things I should be glad to 
learn; but I, in return, can instruct; you on many things you, like me, 
have acquired by false instruction. So let us study together and 
endeavor to understand the meaning of the word " learned." I want to 
judge my readers by my own standard; for I know how eager and 
unquenchable is the thirst for such knowledge, as will forever settle the 
question of the ultimate destiny of humanity. I have settled it to my 
own satisfaction and, if you read this book through candidly, and atten- 
tively, you will be able to judge how far it also meets your desires. Not 
understanding the rules of punctuation, I shall do the best I can to 
make my meaning clear enough to the reader for all practical purposes. 

And the author has also endeavored to characterize the various 
religions which have been prevalent among mankind, in all ages and 
countries, in all time, as being nothing more or less than inventions or 
impositions, and frauds, and more especially the Christian religion, 
'because that form seeks to supplant and supercede, all others, and thus 
become universal by reason of its alleged superiority and its divine 
origin. 

In order to accomplish this undertaking, it has been the purpose of 
the author to speak or write plainly and fearlessly, to use ridicule, sar- 
casm, abuse and denunciation when such weapons were required, to put 



iv Why Theologians Have Escaped Ridicule. 

aside all solemnity or reverence and discuss what are commonly con- 
sidered serious or solemn questions with the same freedom from super- 
stitious awe as questions of a mere secular nature would be discussed. 
The great fault of speakers and writers, who are considered skeptics or 
free thinkers, has always been that they seem afraid that they may offend 
those whom they assail, and therefore they are very cautious in the use 
of epithets, and careful also not to disclose the full extent of their unbe- 
lief, seeming for the most part to wish to leave the impression ofi only 
a partial disagreement on some branches of unbelief. This is more 
obviously the case when some noted theologian refuses to longer be 
confined or restrained from giving expression, either orally or in written 
language, to some advanced theological opinion not held or approved 
of by his associates, and this reserve or care is adopted by him to pre- 
vent his being disciplined, so as to cause him to lose his position and 
thus cut off his income. 

The same hesitation is manifest when non-religious men or, as they 
are sometimes called, infidels, write books or essays for the public. 
None of- these have dared thus far to attack theologians and priests and 
show them to the world in their -true character, as this writer has done 
in what is here written ; and none have yet dared to attack the Bible and 
abolish God, the devil, heaven and hell, or Christ and the Apostles, and 
prove the religion they invented to be only an imposition and fraud, 
as this writer has done. Therefore this book is unique and is likely to 
find a ready sale, as it will supply a long-felt want for some bold writer 
to delineate in a familiar, plain manner, adapted to the comprehension 
of the common people, some of the reasons why these long-endured 
impositions should be immediately and forever abolished. 

If this effort shall be in any degree an aid to this consummation, the 
author will be sufficiently rewarded for his labor. At the same time, no 
one is or can be more fully sensible or aware of the unpopularity of the 
task of holding up to contempt and to ridicule the religious sentiment 
of every form in general, and of the Christian form in particular, than is 
the writer of what follows in these pages ; but, although I expect more 
or less ridicule, isolation and, perhaps, persecution in return, I do not 
fear or even dread them, because a few years hence — as always has been 
the case in all former reforms of abuses that have afflicted human 
society — the opinions of the thinking world will, by such premature 
introduction or presentation of what to the present generation appears 
absurd and untenable, start more or less of thinking minds into active 
examination or analysis of these extreme views, and the book or writing 
containing them will be doing its work modifying and changing, imper- 
ceptibly and slowly, existing errors when the hand that wrote these 



The Skeptic's Defense. v 

advanced views is mingling with the dust and the mind that guided the 
hand will be extinct. 

And if these imperfect writings should be the means of advancing 
by one single hour the inevitable progress of truth and justice, it would 
ensure the fame that rarely is secured during the lifetime of any of the 
reformers that have lived in past times. Without any doubt a learned 
person would have performed the task far better in many respects than 
I have ; but on some accounts my want of learning is a great advantage. 
Thoughts do not range so freely when the brain is overloaded with a 
great variety of knowledge, and it secures a directness, or a bluntness 
and fearless expression, or defmiteness, not met with in the use of more 
polished language. While it is true that a few extremely serious or sen- 
sitive persons do support, defend and revere Christianity on account of 
its alleged and to them real divine origin, they having been so instructed, 
and as thus indispensable to the welfare of nations as well as individu- 
als, the great majority or mass of all people support it from a firm belief 
that it must be supported as a measure of security to the State, or a 
political and social necessity. These; latter are only hypocrites, while 
the former are honest but mistaken. 

I concede it to be not only lawful and right in itself, but also a duty 
for a person, if he has hopes, to guard against anything that might 
interfere with such hopes, but this only on the clearly ascertained condi- 
tion that such hopes are well founded. The priest will tell you it is 
innate or natural to all human beings both to desire and to have a more 
or less extensive sense or apprehension of some form of religion. I 
deny this and say that heredity alone can explain the cause, and science 
has distinctly proved that it was not true of the primitive man any more 
than it is in other animals. Such being the case, what an unutterable 
outrage it is to attack an impressiblei mind, such as infants have at the 
outset of their existence, and give it any bias towards even science! 
But it is an intensely greater outrage to give such minds any religious 
bias; for no part of such teaching as is imparted, for instance, in the 
Sunday school has more than ethical value, entirely incapable of any 
proof, but it may have for some minds an imperceptible or imaginary 
value as a factor of culture. All these intricate subjects ought to be 
kept in reserve for mature intellects to grapple with later in life, without 
previous bias or being filled with impressions apparently half true or 
half false. 

Whether the sentiments I have written are well received or not, 
whether I am forgiven or unforgiven, it is still satisfactory to my percep- 
tion of propriety to have written the truth as I apprehend that truth. 
In coming to a conclusion to write what I have written, I fully realized 



vi Some of the Author's Reasons for Change. 

how dangerous to my reputation or to my standing in the community 
it would be to either say or write what you think, when such saying or 
such writing would conflict with the views of my associates >but when I 
considered that my mind was given me to enable me to think, and that 
my thoughts were given me to utter, either orally or in writing, and 
not to conceal or withhold for fear of reproach or contumely, I felt that 
it was a duty to give to others what I both see and know, that they 
may also see what, but for my discovery,, might never have been sus- 
pected. 

I have sometimes been impressed with the depressing thought, 
while taking such extreme grounds as to deny the very existence of any 
God whatever, or of any Jesus Christ except a fictitious one, or all sys- 
tems of religion except such as are a mere invention of impostors, that, 
so far as I was aware, I was absolutely alone in the intellectual world; 
for no ond not a Jew has ever dared to deny, or even to raise a _c[ues- 
tion, that the Christ of the gospels has ever lived, or that he was never 
crucified. Everybody not a Jew, however ungodly, who was born and 
raised in any Christian country, admits without hesitation, or even 
examination, the truth of the gospels as to those facts. This book is 
intended and constructed to be miscellaneous and continuous, without 
the intervention of chapters, and with no pretence of regularity; but 
open it where you will it is rich in ridicule and sarcasm, and one who 
reads it through will have as rough a mental journey as his body would 
have if he were to ride in a vehicle without springs over a corduroy 
road, for it makes no pretensions either to scholarship or elegant 
phraseology. 

In these writings I consider I have only cast off the unfounded super- 
stitions of my earlier life in my later and maturer life; and, as I turn to 
face my inevitable and not distant end, nothing but a serene peace at the 
prospect of a complete annihilation of the body and mind, or soul, alike 
intervenes to worry or to disturb my confidence. For people who 
believe in a hereafter and choose, by listening to false instruction 
whether oral or between the lids of an untrue Bible, to contemplate and 
to anticipate a doubtful future life adorned with flames and peopled with 
•devils on the one hand, or in an imaginary heaven of endless bliss on the 
other, I can imagine death to have its unpleasant side; but I have come 
to such a point, that I regard all such notions as both unphilosophical 
in the extreme and wholly untrue. Hence death for me has no terrors 
greater than any natural sleep has. The writer of this preface, and of 
what is in the book, has been made aware of the fact that, when anyone 
withdraws from the church to which he once belonged, the priests of 
that church, if such person was of enough consequence to attract their 



The Skeptic's Defense. vii 

notice or to fear their resentment, would become so maddened by 
sophistry, fanaticism and falsehood that they pretend to look upon this 
person as a dangerous foe whom it is their duty to destroy, because he 
has suddenly, as they say, become so lost to honor and virtue that no 
confidence is to be placed on his word, or character, for veracity ; and, 
if such individual is of less consequence, his associates among whom he 
lives, and to whom he is attached by many ties of social or business 
interests, avoid him as they would a person having a contagious, deadly 
disease. Wherever this loathsome sink of iniquity, the priesthood of 
any form of religion, is permitted to as much as breathe, it will carry 
with it destruction and death to all doubters wherever it goes; for the 
great bulk of the dupes of these priests know nothing about the 
religion they profess and for the defence of which they are ready to fight 
and die. The glaring blemishes in the life of the fictitious Christ of the 
New Testament and of other founders of spurious systems, such as 
Mahomet and Joe Smith, are studiously ignored, and the priest exag- 
gerates common morality into supreme virtue when coming from this 
immaculate source. So my apology for writing the following pages is 
to acknowledge my error in following false instruction so long, and to 
caution all others, especially the young and impressible, against falling 
into the snares of the priests who are always ready to seize upon the 
young and confiding, to make of them obedient dupes by which to per- 
petuate and strengthen imposition and fraud. 

I have to ask the reader of these pages not to judge of its merits or 
demerits by some isolated passages, but by its general spirit; for I could 
not give full expression to my thoughts without the delineation of vari- 
ous views each of which is only true when taken as a whole or with 
others, while a single statement by itself may be false because it 
expresses one thing only. The truth is only a compromise with many 
things, so that what I have aimed to inculcate in this book is a con- 
tempt for all religion without any exception, for they are all not only 
false but pernicious. 

The thoughts recorded in the book to which this preface is attached 
have nearly all been written, in various seasons of leisure, when the 
author was more than 75 years old, with but little prospect that he 
would live to see them printed. But as his life has been extended much 
beyond his expectation, and to prevent the easy destruction of a single 
copy of manuscript, and having also been unexpectedly provided with 
the means to do so, he has concluded to be his own publisher of enough 
copies to be so widely distributed that it will be impossible to extinguish 
the whole, no matter how anxious the priests and their dupes may be to 
do so. I flatter myself that, perhaps, some people would read these 



viii Why a Guide is Necessary. 

honest pages not without profit to themselves, and that the coming gen- 
erations, who are sure to be somewhat uncertain what road to follow, 
would be pleased to find out how. an old, illiterate man, very frank and 
very sincere, expressed some of his thoughts at the end of his career 
when face to face with only his past to look' back upon and no future 
to anticipate or wish for. 

C. M. LANDERS. 
Ridgeland, N. Y., September 6th, 1895. 



The Skeptics Defense. 



Before entering on the principal theme treated in the following 
pages, it has been considered advisable instead of actually praying for 
the success to be expected from its perusal to produce conviction in the 
mind of the reader to take the reverse course and so characterize that 
exercise that it will appear useless. The priest never expects success in 
his calling without first, in the middle, and at the end, praying. On the 
other hand this author is content to trust to the merit of the work itself 
and not worry any God or even devil to interfere, but I will give expres- 
sion to some thoughts that have arisen since I have abandoned the 
practice of extemporaneous praying. 

A specialist in the treatment of any form of bodily malady becomes 
skillful in the' treatment of such malady in proportion ta the length of 
time which he has put in practice his peculiar way of treatment and the 
number whom he has treated, and thereby a reputation is established 
which secures to such an individual sufficient notoriety to enable him to 
secure a fortune in a short time more especially,however, provided he can 
fortify his reputation by showing favorable results,and this is not difficult 
when ignorance and credulity are the only obstacles to be encountered. 
A few names forged to highly sensational certificates to nearly miracu- 
lous cures is in most cases all that is required to cause the sufferer to 
apply to this wonderful specialist and procure remedies and advice to 
effect the desired cure. This causes the one who endeavors to cure 
these special maladies to mix and compound various nostrums having, 
as he alleges, the virtues necessary for success and these are sold to 
those who do not apply in person, but become customers on the prin- 
ciple of faith. This, or a like process, has been extended and applied to 
praying indiscriminately and persistently by the set of holy experts or 
specialists who profess to be able to secure any result asked for more 
certainly, however, when the applicant can furnish the required amount 
of money to be an equivalent for the favor desired. The same result is 
had in one case as the other where no money is provided; all result is 
only fictitious and imaginary, consequently worthless, a mere device of 
imposition and fraud, humbug and deception ever since and wherever 
it has been practiced. There would be some excuse for the practice 
of this silly mummery if the most searching inquiry or the most diligent 
study of every one's own experience who has indulged in this useless 



2 The Necessity of Prayer Explained. 

practice, as the writer of these lines has for maijy years, could or would 
show the least benefit ever realized except to in some cases hide some 
moral deformity from those who regard the practice of praying as an 
evidence of virtue and purity of character, that this practice is errone- 
ously supposed to indicate to be present with the one who has and uses 
this gift, not for a moment suspecting that one so closely related to God 
as to dare to address Him as Father, and Intimate Friend, can have 
and practice any moral deformity. The discovery of many cases of the 
most fearful depravity in the person of numerous hypocrites who have 
worked under this cloak for many years, and without being suspected 
on account of their devotional and apparently honest aspect, have com- 
mitted the most outrageous crimes against both uprightness in financial 
integrity, but have been guilty of the most flagrant social debauchery 
that the criminal courts can furnish a record of, and it may with cer- 
tainty be inferred that where) one case of this nature comes to light a 
hundred are never discovered. 

Prayer being universal among the different nations of the human 
race, without reference to any peculiar form of religious belief, and 
being considered by those who use it as of the highest importance it 
seems appropriate to investigate the subject with a view to discover its 
origin, its necessity, its utility, or value. Ever since the human animal 
has been sufficiently developed from the low form from which, after 
many ages of gradual approximation to a fully developed specimen as 
we now see him, he emerged; he has been able to reflect on the position 
he occupies in the material world and compare his own condition with 
that of the various forms of animal life from which he sprung, and over 
which he is able to exert a controlling power ; also to reflect on the sub- 
ordinate position he himself occupies with reference to, or with what he 
has been taught to believe is a superior being to which he is mysteri- 
ously related, and by which he feels himself in some measure restrained, 
and to which he is compelled to submit. This feeling of inferiority and 
dependence finally reached that point that found its fullest realization in 
the natural relation of parent and child, which needed no other demon- 
stration than what natural affection spontaneously furnished, and in 
time reached that degree of perfection that caused the child to instinct- 
ivelv look to its parent for a continual and' ample supply of its many 
wants and necessities until such a state of maturity was reached when 
the efforts of the child and its experience enabled it to dispense with the 
care of the parent and provide for not only its own wants, but in turn 
the wants of his own children. This process of continual reproduction 
has continued ever since the first beginning of 'the process, however 
remote in the past we can imagine it to have begun, and is destined to 



The Skeptic's Defense. 3 

continue as long as time shall last, and makes a condition of things 
from which no change is possible, and in a properly constituted mind is 
not desirable, but the dissatisfaction^ of the greater part of the human 
race with their surroundings and the hope that some change may better 
their condition, led the best developed specimens of the race of primitive 
man to faintly conceive the notion that finally reached the idea that 
there must be a God who occupied the same relation to man as his child 
that he himself did as the father of his children to them, and conse- 
quently he could be influenced by prayer and supplication, and only 
required to be informed of their wants to immediately respond in the 
manner and to the extent desired. The foregoing is as reasonable a 
definition of the way prayer originated as can be produced, but is not 
put forth as an actual fact, nothing better than conjecture, and no one 
can invent a better or more reasonable origin ; and having once begun, 
notwithstanding no one in all the vast number, in all ages and countries, 
who have continually and persistently prayed for every imaginable bless- 
ing, and have never in so much as one instance received the least recog- 
nition or response, it has continued, till at present it is universal under 
the same transmitted false conclusions, for none of the assumptions 
relied upon to justify these conclusions have any reality. It is therefore 
fair and reasonable to conclude, that in order for prayer to be of any 
use, the being to whom this prayer is directed must be real not imagin- 
ary, just as real as the living and visible parent is to the needy and help- 
less child, and must be accessible) and so changeable that none of the 
laws of nature that are unceasingly in spontaneous operation producing 
results so directly opposite from what this applicant for a change in his 
favor is asking for, that in order to get a favorable answer to his prayer 
all the forces of nature must be suspended or altered so that to gratify 
all the numerous and various applications would make it impossible for 
any of the works of nature to go on, and as it is evident that none of the 
laws of nature have ever ceased to operate for an instant, the conclusion 
is irresistible that the aggregate impression that the human race have 
made since the first prayer was offered, is not equal to the effect one drop 
of water would have to raise the level of the ocean. Why then is this use- 
less ceremony kept up and insisted on as indispensable to human wel- 
fare? It is simply what the inventors of this stupendous humbug 
intended it should be a superstitious reverence for what has no existence 
tc keep alive what ought to have never had any life. The utility or 
value of prayer as a means of procuring any desired result has so long 
and thoroughly been tested, that any reasonable person would naturally 
suppose that those who use it and pretend to rely upon it would be dis- 
couraged in placing any further reliance on what has never been any- 



4 The Uselessness of Prayer Explained. 

thing but absolute failure, and such would be the case if no instruction 
on that subject was from time to time received to the effect that those 
pravers will avail in some mysterious manner to cause results to be 
favorable that would without prayer prove unfavorable. 

It will be remembered that when the great and good President Lin- 
coln was shot by that worthless wicked villain, Wilkes Booth, and was 
not instantly killed, but was so severely wounded that absolutely no 
hope was ever given by his attending medical or surgical experts that 
he could possibly live more than a few hours, the fools called ministers 
and all other grades of religious sapheads united in asking the God who 
they pretend to be so familiar with and who they rely upon to give a 
favorable answer to any unreasonable petition they are pleased to invent, 
to suspend all the laws of cause and effect and do that which if he were 
simple enough to do would entitle him to more censure than he was 
exposed to when he allowed his assailant to place him in the situa- 
tion to need any supernatural help. The whole combined prayers of the 
nation of the various churches of the individuals were not sufficient to 
add one instant to the life of Lincoln beyond what it would have been 
if nothing had been said. v 

The same result was again realized when President Garfield was 
shot by Guiteau, and languished several months between life and 
death, thus giving abundant time for the most liberal exercise of the 
praying faculties of the whole mass of those who pretend to have influ- 
ence with the Almighty to if possible produce a favorable result. No 
such result was had and not one instant was added to the time which 
was alloted by natural causes when death must ensue, nor one particle 
of pain or suffering was averted. 

The praying fools had not learned anything yet so they resorted to 
prayer again. When Grant had a fatal malady, earnest, universal and 
persistent prayer to avert, if possible, the fatal results that the experience 
of the medical world in all time, had arrived at, that the cancer of the 
throat which Grant had could not be either cured or relieved and speedy 
death was inevitable and his life was not prolonged one instant, or one 
throb of pain was averted by all this useless effort. The same result is 
always experienced in all families in which some of their loved ones are 
in danger of death or disaster ; with individuals when they are in trouble 
or danger, and with every grade and kind of ministers who are more 
expert from much and long practice, than is the one who seldom prays, 
or the mere child who repeats the Lord's prayer as soon as they can be 
learned the words. 

Another instance of the failure of prayer when the most noted orth- 
odox Baptist minister of modern times, if not of all times, the great 



The Skeptic's Defense. 5 

Charles H, Spurgeon, was prostrated by -a malady which seemed to be 
likely to prove mortal as it finally did, but before the end came there was 
an interval of about six months, thus giving ample time for the praying 
faculties of the whole orthodox Christian world to indulge the praying 
craze to its utmost limit without any cessation or want of faith, but 
without also any mitigation of suffering or averting a fatal termination. 
Is it not one of the most wonderful impositions the world contains, 
that a set of men called priests, can so impress upon their dupes that 
these priests by standing before an audience and closing their eyes can 
extemporaneously construct a prayer which shall include every subject 
which this sanctimonious hypocrite can either call to mind or invent, 
and these listeners who have been taught to also close their eyes bow 
their heads, and often their knees, and also unite in this universal prayer 
and adopt it as their own and expect a favorable answer when all their 
previous experience has proven that there is not the least change in a 
single case from what would have been without this foolish mockery. 
There never was and there never will be a human being that has the 
ability to either form or express the slightest conception of either the 
being of the God to whom they pray or the place where He resides, and 
therefore his existence is only imaginary and this statement can be 
extended to a future life about which the whole human family in all the 
ages have been inquiring, and there never was, or never will or can be, 
any uniformity in a conception of any future life, simply and only 
because there is nowhere or never has been given the slightest intima- 
tion of a future life except a wish and an unfounded expectation unau- 
thorized from any reliable source that a reunion of broken ties of love 
and esteem will again be revived when the final destiny of the race shall 
be ascertained at the judgment day. Pray on, ye crazy fanatics, if it is 
any benefit to you as individuals, but do not urge and demand others to 
likewise pray for simply that reason and do not instruct either your 
children or any one else to contract this useless habit while they are too 
young to realize that it is a vain waste of energy and a mere solemn 
mockery. Let it not be supposed that the writer has had no experi- 
ence or exercise of the praying faculty ; for while he does not profess to 
having been an expert yet he was for many years after maturity was 
reached, a sincere, honest, praying man, a fair sample of the average 
church member, but leaves on record the above advice for others. 

Some experienced experts pretend that the exercise of the praying 
faculty causes a sort of reflex action on the individual who keeps that 
faculty in use, but that is purely imaginary, hence all this waste of effort 
has been of no use to either those prayed for or to those who pray. 
The Catholic, the Episcopalian or the Lutheran do not themselves make 



6 The Reason Why Prayer is Insisted On. 

an extemporaneous prayer, they merely read such prayers as are com- 
posed for their use by the bishops, and are printed in the prayer book 
provided they are able to read. If they are not able to read the pious 
Catholic devotee is provided with a rosary consisting of a string of 
beads divided into sections, by inserting a larger bead at the end of one 
set of prayers so that a change of subjects to need prayers to be men- 
tally repeated may be known when those beads are reached. These 
prayers so imagined to have been ^aid have the same reflex benefit on 
the ignorant dupe who uses the beads as the most eloquent oral pro- 
nunciation of the same words have' on the most devout and highly edu- 
cated dupe. They are both wholly except imaginary, useless so that no 
mode of praying has any value over any other mode it is only so much 
mistaken duty done and gives the same satisfaction in one case as the 
other. Very little is known about the Mahometan or Jews' prayers 
except that- they pray much, but for what reason is not apparent. 

The supposed necessity of prayer is caused by reason of the sense 
of want of various kinds, and also by the sense of dependence on some 
supernatural being from whom they have been previously taught to 
expect both the ability and wish to grant any and every unreasonable 
and impossible request, and more especially, in case of dire extremity, 
when in extreme danger, when no escape seems possible,, as in fire or 
shipwreck, when those that have no right to expect any supernatural 
assistance- are often the most energetic in supplication and as sensitive 
to realize their dependence on such aid, and as much entitled to receive 
it, as are the most pious and devout hypocrites, for in both cases only 
false instruction has taught the individual that supernatural help is 
promised to meet all emergencies, and is at all times to be had for the 
simple ceremony of asking, but this asking must be accompanied with 
sufficient faith to produce the result asked for, or in other words a belief 
that the being to whom this request is made is a reality, and is both 
able and willing to grant this needed assistance, and that no other pro- 
cess can secure any relief. This was a very shrewd movement on the 
part of those impostors who contrived this scheme of deception and 
fraud, prayer, but its failure to produce any of the expected results ought 
to have demonstrated to the deluded votaries of these unscrupulous 
impostors that some glaring defect was found to exist when this pray- 
ing device came to be tested, but the answer to all these objections was 
a lack of faith, which in all cases was necessary to get any favorable 
result, consequently repetition after repetition must be made persist- 
ently till finally the desired favor would be had, if not in a direct, visible 
way, still in some imperceptible and equally satisfactory manner. The 
value of prayer as an accompaniment of other religious qualifications is 



The Skeptic's Defense. 7 

always regarded in all orthodox sects as of the first importance, and a 
natural endowment added to much practice often enables the individual 
so favored to become conspicuous and highly valued in the church of 
which he is a member, as being able to hold such near and familiar 
intercourse with the possessor and giver of all good that his acquire- 
ments and services are often of more value than one who is merely 
able to address his fellowmen, however eloquent he may be, especially 
when he has acquired the faculty to modulate the tones of his voice, 
which are so adapted to express the various emotions of the listener, 
as to impress him with his sincerity and influence with the almighty 
ruler of all. In order that the novice in the art of praying (for it is 
only an art or accomplishment) may have the chance to acquire suf- 
ficient practice to become expert in that acquirement, prayer meetings 
and meetings for the Society of Christian Endeavor are appointed for 
practice, both to learn to pray well and to relate their experience in the 
struggle they have engaged in, to endeavor to live as is supposed to be 
necessary when one starts in the course of Christian duty. 

These meetings are conducted by some designated skillful expert and 
after a few lessons and a few attempts to compose a suitable petition, 
the victim, who is found to be himself a leader, gets most of the practice, 
being most frequently given the position and assigned to that duty, and 
working in a skillful way on the emotions of the listeners, and shedding 
a few crocodile tears, and modulating the voice to indicate earnestness 
and faith, can so impress the sympathetic emotional nature of more or 
less of his listeners that they too are persuaded after much hesitation to 
begin the same absurd round of supposed necessary struggle to make 
the acquaintance of the imaginary being who holds the destiny of all 
beings in his power, and who is supposed to require an unconditional 
surrender of his whole mental faculties to the molding influence of the 
spiritual guide who assumes to be authorized to administer the sacra- 
ments prescribed by the hierarchy of the church, and admit him to exam- 
ination, and if found worthy, also admit him into full communion and 
fellowship and start him on the journey towards heaven and the rewards 
he may expect, as a compensation for the liberal gifts of money which he 
is assured is so much treasure laid up in heaven ; and also what is neces- 
sary in order to keep this system of fraud and deception from dying out. 

The atheist and other infidels are the only beings who never pray, 
and they are as much in need of the benefit to be derived from that cere- 
mony as any of the rest of ; the race, but they are in no sense inferior in 
their intellectual or moral nature to the most highly gifted among those 
who make prayer their chief reliance, and they can show as many great 
minds in their ranks in proportion, as can any branch of theists. 



8 The Medium or Mediator Theory. 

No man that has ever lived is great in all departments of knowledge, 
but all have special acquirements in some of which they excel, and 
because some great minds are conceded to belong to praying men is no 
indication that they are made so by prayer or any kind of religious 
belief, in fact they are perceptibly dwarfed by such belief in God as to 
for a moment suppose that cause and effect will ever cease to operate by 
any quantity or quality of importunity, when the individual who makes 
these unreasonable requests is continually violating both moral and 
physical laws, and then goes and asks his heavenly father, or in other 
words, his God, to also violate his established laws,which he has no more 
ability or even right to do than his children have, and never has done, or 
never will interfere with the precise and unvarying operation of nature's 
laws. 

If the time ever comes when the various grades of atheists and 
infidels becomes sufficiently numerous to safely assail by sarcasm and 
ridicule the praying portion of the community, among which they reside, 
to the extent to make them ashamed to indulge in this useless perform- 
ance, those that come later on the stage will be filled with wonder and 
astonishment, not much short of indignation, and be inclined to pity 
the silly dupes, that so long were made such by false instruction. 

The orthodox Christian has invented a mediator, through whom 
these holy impostors who invent all these absurd doctrines, tell them and 
they believe it, they may hope to reach the eternal father, who is so 
highly offended with the human race because they inherited the fallen 
nature of Adam when it was impossible -to avoid it, that he will not 
notice any prayer to him unless they mentioned the name of Christ in 
connection with such prayer, thus making it wholly useless for those 
that never heard of any Christ to pray at all, as well as those that have 
heard of him, but do not believe him to be more than human, 
forgetting that this same mediator when he was human; the same 
as every other human being, appealed directly to the eternal father of all 
humanity without any mediator and instructed his dupes, who are called 
now disciples, in the so-called Lord's prayer to ignore any mediator, 
and this notion of mediator in all the Roman Catholic portion of the 
Christian world is extended so as to require a sub-mediator, the Virgin 
Mary, who is first to be approached by the penitent, and she then 
approaches her son, and he not having sufficient power to forgive sin, 
and having to trust to the vacillating and changeable disposition of his 
father is not prepared to render a positive answer, but merely a hope 
that forgiveness will ultimately come, but there can be no hope unless the 
price is paid in money as well as faith. Such is the Roman Catholic 
plan of salvation through a mediator; any more false instruction than 
this it is impossible to conceive. 



The Skeptic's Defense. 9 

False instruction is directly responsible for all this waste of time, 
energy and money in a worse than useless mock mummery called prayer. 
Those even among the most devout, who wholly neglect to pray at all, 
are just as prosperous and happy and more so than those are who have 
allowed themselves to be made dupes of by a set of unscrupulous design- 
ing villains, under the false impression that it was both necessary 
and beneficient when the reverse is the exact truth. 

By far the most foolish example of the importance of prayer is that 
recorded in several places in the gospels, when Jesus Christ is repre- 
sented as himself engaging in prayer, sometimes for himself, as when he 
was approaching the time when in consequence of the outrageous con- 
duct which had made him so odious to the people, that they had resolved 
on his destruction and disbanding the gang that he was leading round 
the country, he leads them into a private garden to endeavor to elude 
the police who were about to arrest him, he there prays for deliverance, 
and with what result? None at all. The arrest was made, but the thing 
most to be noticed is the Almighty God praying to himself, for if Jesus 
Christ was not God then neither his teachings or example on this subject 
of prayer is of the least importance, and if he is God it needs no prayer 
to produce any result wished for. 

One of the most glaring lies is toj be found in the 12th chapter of 
John's gospel, 27-30, where there is an appeal to his Father to be saved 
from the hour of death and a confession that he was for this cause 
come to this hour, for what cause if not that he might be saved? and well 
knowing he would not be saved, for if he was, the work of the world's 
salvation could never be completed, and then adds, father glorify thy 
name, and this petition is answered in these words : " I have both glori- 
fied it and will glorify it again." If there was any assurance that this 
prayer or any other that is attributed to Christ was ever made, this 
answer would rest on the same assurance and this single instance is 
the only one to be found either between the lids of the Bible, or in the 
experience of all the praying fanatics that the world has ever produced, 
where either a verbal or any other answer has been either received or 
even expected, and the very next verse distinctly denies that any other 
sound but a clap of thunder was heard, or as some said, an angel spake 
to him. 

Now it would be interesting to know how absurdity could go any 
further than this, but this unproved absurdity is just as firmly believed 
as the most natural proposition would be, simply because it is in the 
Bible and the Bible is true, unquestionably, so we have been instructed, 
and are now being instructed with as much assurance by the priests as 
if no one would dare to either dispute or doubt its assertions. 



10 The Inconsistency of Prayer. 

Another example of this monstrous inconsistency of God praying to 
himself, is found in the 17th chapter of John, where a whole chapter is 
used to record an imaginary prayer, not one word of which was heard 
by any living person, or any record made of it, and the most of it was 
for others besides himself, but in any way you please to regard it, wholly 
unauthorized and unnecessary, and no answer was ever received or 
expected for it is simply the late invention of some impostor who had a 
gift in that direction, and is similar in its import to those printed pray- 
ers that fill the most of the prayer books, and enable the weakest and 
most ignorant dupe to pray as eloquently and with the same success as 
the bishop himself, who composed them, in both cases, none at all. It 
will always remain one of the greatest of wonders why such a useless 
waste of energy was not discovered and abandoned after simply one 
trial and such would have been the case if the priests had not interfered 
and encouraged perseverance, because if praying was to cease, a 
large diminution in the revenue of the priests would occur. 

It will be conceded by all reasonable persons, that, when any subject 
as important as religion is supposed to be, and is universally admitted 
to be, outside of skepticism, that, before any individual of sufficient 
mental capacity to comprehend even the rudiments of that subject 
believes it, he would demand at least some proof, before receiving, or 
believing such teachings, or statements, as are put forth and relied on by 
those who instruct such as employ them for that purpose, and not be 
satisfied with mere assertion, more especially, when any event or occur- 
ence, miraculous in its nature, is related, as confirmatory of any state- 
ment of such teacher. Superstition, as long as it can be early intro- 
duced in the training of the young, and continued by such instruction 
as is imparted by the Sunday-school, is confidently relied upon, by the 
designing hypocritical villains called priests, to enable them to control, 
usurp, and finally destroy, the ability of their dupes, to either investigate 
this important matter for their own satisfaction, or even desire to do so ; 
therefore, as long as this priestly influence can be maintained, so long 
will superstition be their main reliance, but when a reaction occurs, by 
means of which this superstition is gradually weakened, and finally is 
overthrown, by the discovery being made in some unexpected way, that 
this religious belief is incapable of verification, or is barren of any real 
benefit, and is only a superstitious reverence for what has not reality, he 
consequently abandons the very idea of religion, as he would desert a 
medical quack, when he had ascertained to his satisfaction he was such, 
or reject a spurious coin. 

The priests of the Christian form of religion, with which we are most 
directly concerned, have, in order to give us that assured verity which 



The Skeptic's Defense. 11 

seemed to them essential, given us as they assert, but do not as much as 
attempt to prove, an infallible standard of truth, contained in an inspired 
revelation, or book they name the " Holy Bible.'' This, they impu- 
dently assure us, is produced by the writers whose names in most cases 
they bear, acting as clerks, through or by whom the eternal God who. 
made all things, dictated to them what they recorded. So far, this 
assertion rests only on the unsupported statement of a set of vile impos- 
tors, who directly are interested to have this imposition received without 
question, and, when we ask them how do you know this to be so? They 
reply, we are told so by a certain religious newspaper, and by certain 
books and ancient teachers, which have credit among a limited handful 
of the world's inhabitants, and if we are as anxious for verification of 
this statement as we ought to be in so serious a matter, we ought not 
to be satisfied, merely because :hey were told so, for religious news- 
papers, like others, are not infallible ; they make mistakes, and, the same 
reason applies to books and religious teachers, they all make mistakes; 
and, therefore, this assertion of theirs, that the Bible is the inspired 
word of God, or was dictated by him, not only may be, but undoubtedly 
is a mistake, and more than a mere mistake, an intentional, wilful lie, or 
imposition, and, it is one of the strangest of the operations of the human 
mind, that, when on minor subjects they require ample proof before 
conviction of its truth, on this the most important of all subjects, so 
regarded by these same persons, because it extends into eternity. They 
are too indolent to investigate, or too indifferent to care whether it is 
true or not. 

The doctrine of the orthodox Christian church, or that branch out- 
side of the Catholic portion of that corrupt organization, is as follows : 
The bible is the supreme authority, over both the church and the rea- 
son, and is free from mistake or error, and, as we have it, is just as it 
came from God, its author, and; even in its punctuation, (which is of 
recent invention), this quality of inspiration is extended, and also in its 
numerous translations and revisions; God has continually superintended 
its revisions, and prevented any errors, or mistakes, also that the mir- 
acles it records have been wrought or caused by the operation of natural 
laws and forces; that no decree or law, is, or has ever been changed, 
and that no prediction of his which all the prophecies in the Bible are, 
has failed or will fail of fulfillment; that man was created perfectly holy, 
and woman, and all other forms of animal and vegetable life, were pro- 
duced as the Bible asserts in its fii st chapters they were and much more 
of the like import. This is substantially the opinion inculcated by all 
the theologians in the orthodox sects, and is so taught and expressed in 
all their symbols. Who told them all this? For, if we should grant 



12 The Bible Not Infallible. 

that the Bible is infallible, we still must hold their testimony is insuffi- 
cient, because they are fallible witnesses, and confess to their own blun- 
ders; therefore, we have not reached a foundation which is better than 
sand or mire, and it will not do to build any hope of heaven, or be tor- 
mented with any fear of hell, on such a foundation; so that we must go 
back further, and there we find those we have been told are reformers, 
who were not only obliged, but compelled to assert the infallibility of 
the bible, as the standard of truth ; but who and what were the reform- 
ers, and how did they know? They might have been in some respects 
above the average of their contemporaries, but they were not infallible, 
and had no better means than we have, if as good, to arrive at such a 
conclusion, and only reached it after fierce debate among themselves, for 
the reason, that it was an absolute necessity laid upon them, to main- 
tain their position of separation, and also to strengthen, and perpetuate 
their wicked imposition. 

In place of an infallible church, and an infallible Pope, they must 
have another infallibility, after leaving them, and that infallibility they 
decided, on such slim authority must be the Bible. Were they right in 
this decision? Because if they were not, the reference to them, only 
weakens the appeal to them ; for, if they were not infallible, they might 
be mistaken, and they all distinctly confessed their fallibility. They 
also denied that the church as a whole was infallible, therefore, the testi- 
mony of these reformers is worthless, and so we are driven back beyond 
the reformers, to the church from which the reformers revolted. That 
church sheds no light on the infallibility of the Bible, for they never 
taught such a doctrine. We all know that there was a time when there 
was no Bible, either the old or new testament, as we have it, and the old 
testament as the Jews have it, a vast quantity of writing, by so-called 
holy or inspired men, some designated portions of which, were allowed 
to be read, and explained in the early Christian assemblies, for, con- 
temporaneous histories of the church, and also secular, both state and 
amply confirm these facts, but, there is no where to be found the shadow 
of proof, that any of these writings have come down to our times, but 
the books and fragments which have been collected, and called the new 
testament, for anything which we know to the contrary, are all fictitious, 
and the real authors entirely unknown, or the time when they were 
written, but, profane history informs us, that about three hundred and 
sixtv of the Christian era, so-called, delegates from various portions 
of the Roman empire, came together in council or convention at Laodi- 
cea, and after much deliberation and earnest discussion, agreed upon an 
official or authorized list of the writings extant of these so-called holy 
men, which they then and there considered were divinely inspired, and 



The Skeptic's Defense. 13 

these only were permitted to be read in the public assemblies, and all 
others not in that list were excluded. The epistles of James, the second 
epistle of Peter, second and third epistles of John, and Revelations, 
were prohibited, as uninspired, and therefore spurious, as were about 
fifty others which were offered to be received or rejected, and were all 
rejected ; but a later council admitted the epistle of James, the second 
epistle of Peter, the second and third epistles of John, and Revelations, 
and that is the actual process, by means of which what we now call the 
new testament was got together, and passed along near two thousand 
years, receiving on the way, many translations and revisions, till at last 
we have it, as a revelation direct from the Eternal God, without as the 
priests tell us, either the suspicion or possibility of error. 

The most notorious thing to be taken into the account in connection 
with the preceding description of how our authority was derived, or 
produced, is, that all the theologians, and all the ministers and teachers 
of every grade, are not only aware of the facts as above stated, but are 
engaged in a deep plot, to not only deceive the people, by insisting that 
this Bible on which they found their right to teach, is both divinely 
inspired and literally true, because they can thus earn a living, when 
they know it is not, but to also by means of this imposition, rob them of 
as much of their substance, in the name of the Lord, by extracting 
from their dupes a sufficient sum each year, to enable them to live and 
raise an expensive family in luxurious ease, and at the same time propa- 
gate and perpetuate this vile imposition. These unscrupulous impost- 
ors, called theologians, have always fought science in all its efforts to 
enlighten the world, because, if it was* permitted to become far enough 
advanced, to be able to prove their statements, such, as that the; earth 
was a sphere, and revolved on its axis, causing day and night, and other 
like discoveries that scientific inquiry might disclose, if not vigorously 
opposed, would conflict with the teaching of revelation, as taught by 
these rascally theologians, which dare not attempt to prove any of their 
unfounded statements, to such an extent as to perceptibly weaken if 
not wholly destroy the whole wicked system. But in spite of this deter- 
mined opposition, which has materially hindered and delayed science, 
so that is has only quite lately become far enough advanced in several 
directions, that it can now compel theologians to admit, that the account 
which the bible gives of the origin of man, as well as of the earth and 
all material things, is open to at least some doubt, and, further than that, 
has compelled. the admission by many of the most able theologians, that 
ths Bible is not inspired, or any more trustworthy or reliable than any 
other ancient literature. When this reluctant admission becomes gen- 
eral, as science will soon force it to become, the foundation on which 



14 On the Reliability of History. 

the Christian church, and also the Jewish church is built, will be 
destroyed, and the bible will be reduced to the same level as other 
ancient books, as to its divine character, and the miracles which it 
relates, will be revealed to be only hiimbug. Science is still (in conse- 
quence of the opposition it encounters by religion) in its infancy, far 
behind its deserved position, but is now being advanced by a large and 
constantly increasing body of determined men, of such ability, as theo- 
logians dare not encounter in debate, who are, however, pursuing their 
investigations, not for the purpose of destroying any particular system 
of religion, but only for the laudable purpose of discovering the truth, 
so as to be able not only to assert, but also demonstrate it to be true. 
Astronomers of the highest reputation, now are bold enough to deny, 
in the newspapers that have the widest circulation, such statements as 
are made by the accounts, that the gospel by Matthew gives, of the 
star of Bethlehem, and prove as well as assert, that there never was any 
star there at all, and if the account of the star is taken away from that 
foolish story, it destroys its credibility in every other of these incredible 
statements, and that results in throwing doubt on anything this writer 
asserts, and also all the other writers who repeat any statements made 
by him, as Mark and Luke do in many of their statements, but vary the 
statements so as to show in soma cases a plain contradiction, and this 
contradiction destroys the theory of divine inspiration of any of its 
parts, for inspiration must be uniform to be genuine. 

If the Christian theologians, in process of time, become willing to 
admit that the Christ delineated in the gospels is merely and only his- 
torical, and therefore is not a sufficient basis or foundation on which to 
build so magnificent a structure as the doctrine of the atonement is, in 
the estimation of all orthodox Christians, it will then be in order or 
proper to inquire as to the credibility of the historian or writer of such 
history. 

Many, and perhaps most readers of history, consider the statements 
made in such histories reliable. This is a great mistake. History, 
whether ancient or modern, is made up or compiled by a class of men, in 
any age or country, who have adaptation and special facilities to get at 
facts of enough consequence in his judgment to be worthy of mention, 
or preservation, and these facts are extracted from the preserved lives of 
some more or less conspicuous individuals written by some admirers or 
else by some enemy of this person or party and in most cases the scribe 
who writes, adds to or omits what his individual bias dictates. Later 
the ruling power or editor to whom this manuscript is submitted for 
publication or preservation, is sure to expunge what is considered det- 
rimental to his interests or that of the statei and an essential group of 



The Skeptic's Defense. 15 

facts are overlooked, and others misstated so that every historical record 
is so far from reliability that very little dependence is the safest guide to 
use, as to its value, until it has been confirmed by contemporaneous his- 
torians, and these confirmations have been investigated and sifted by 
able scholars, who are gifted with the skill of detectives, for many 
ancient histories, such as Heroditus, Pliny, Livy, Tacitus, Seutonius, 
and the others were all written by the permission and under the super- 
vision of the then monarch, who personally examined and approved or 
condemned them; therefore, history never can more than imperfectly 
satisfy the demand for knowledge of the past, when even a full knowl- 
edge is required before any correct judgment can be had, because all 
history is obliged to omit a thousand times more than it attempts to 
report and so history of any kind is of very little value to any student 
to employ as a basis on which to found any system adapted to his own 
times or conditions. Too scanty an amount of resource is as fatal to 
the truth of history as is too great an abundance of sources, and both 
are used in every compilation, and when to this is added the personal 
bias of every historian, it is evident that but small reliance is to be 
placed on any statement. Still as this is our only resource to acquaint 
ourselves with national or individual events of a long past age^ it must 
be accepted for what it may be 1 worth else. the study of history is ren- 
dered entirely useless. 

While it may be admitted that the leading events recorded in any 
ancient history which are corroborated, or certified to by other contem- 
poraneous writers are reliable, the accompanying details are always 
more or less contradictory, and therefore unreliable. As the history at 
the outset of any ancient people, or individual, is more or less vitiated or 
corrupted by fable, we ought not to be more particular about the origin 
and development of ancient religion, such as the Buddhist, the Brah- 
manistic, the Confucian, etc., than we are towards the Egyptian, Greek, 
or Roman. The main facts in each case may be historically true, and 
some, or perhaps many of the details false, as for instance: We are told 
that Confucius was born five hundred and fifty-one years before other 
history says Christ was, and that he died four hundred and seventy-five 
years before Christ was born, and that he was not the originator of any 
system, but only a reformer of a religion long before invented, and this 
whole system was recorded in four books of theology, but that this 
ancient system had become corrupt, and the age so dissolute, that, when 
he appeared, he was seen to be the needed instrument to restore 
Buddhism to its former purity, and this purity applied as much to 
political, national, and family purity, as to religious. 



16 The Parent Religion and Its Children. 

Buddhism existed ages before any other known form, and is the 
parent, or germ, from which have sprung every other, but itself is now 
nearly extinct, found nowhere on earth but in two widely separated 
localities, Thibet and Ceylon. Such forms as Brahmanism and Hindu- 
ism, derived their existence from Buddhism, and include more adher- 
ents at the present time than all other religions combined, and these 
others have all originated in or from them. The Jewish form of 
religion can be distinctly traced to them, in its main characteristics, and, 
instead of being divinely transmitted, as the rascally authors pretend it 
was, it was only copied. 

The Persian was invented as was supposed by Christna, but on 
analysis it is found to be only copied by him, and handed along by Zor- 
oaster and from it, Christianity was copied, and the name itself of the 
hero or head, which fiction invented as its originator, was obtained by 
simply dropping the two final letters, leaving Christ, and that is the real 
origin of Christ, and Christianity, instead of its miraculous origin, as 
delineated in the four gospels. It thus becomes a .question of the first 
importance, how far are the sources from which ancient history is 
derived to be relied on, or what do they really say? This all depends on 
the ability, and the willingness of the writer thereof to tell the truth 
fully. This must be said with reference to the dependence to be put on 
ancient history, more especially, for in that we are the most concerned 
in this connection, but this applies to all history. First as to the ability 
of the historian; we must be informed how far he was in a position to be 
himself aware of the facts, and to what extent his penetration is to be 
trusted in such matters as he records; also, besides his ability to tell the 
truth, is he willing 1 to tell it unbiased, for, in many cases he may have 
reasons or motives of his own, for concealing, or withholding the truth, 
or even substituting an untruth, and this tendency would not be of so 
much importance, in any secular or any worldly transaction, as it is, 
when the whole eternal salvation of the whole human race, is made to 
depend on the precise accuracy of every statement made in the bible, on 
which such salvation depends. If that is erroneous in the slightest par- 
ticular, it vitiates the whole, as for instance, if the Christ of the gospels 
was not introduced into this world, in the precise way described by 
Matthew, he never came at all; and if he did come in that way, or any 
other way, and was not executed in the way these gospels all assert he 
was, he might as well not have come at all. 

Without stopping to inquire at this stage, as to the probability of the 
story of the first advent, let us analyze those stories of these gospels or 
narratives, that give rise to the belief of the Christian portion of the 
world, that Christ was actually crucified, and here let it be stated, that, 



The Skeptic's Defense. 17 

if this unfounded belief cannot be established from this purely one-sided 
source, it cannot be established at all ; for the archives, or records of the 
Roman empire as it was at the time when Pilate and Herod had authority 
in Judea, and which record all important events of their administration, 
and which can now be consulted if any doubt the statements, as well as 
all contemporaneous history, are entirely silent as to any such events 
having transpired" in any province of the Roman empire. 

It must be said in the outset of any inquiry into this question, it is 
indispensably necessary to banish supernaturalism or belief in the 
miraculous, and examine it according to the merely one-sided evidence 
which these gospels furnish, and not place any dependence on our faith, 
or previous bias, as it was produced by our early false instruction, for 
every candid mind will unhesitatingly admit, that false instruction is no 
evidence for any proposition. Perhaps the gospels do not fully disclose 
the fact, but it will not be disputed, or if it is there is a great abundance 
of historical unanimity which can be cited as proof, that the Jews in 
Pilate's time, were a subject or subjected nation, and, that thev neither 
made, or administered, the laws of their own country, and were espe- 
cially, in so many words in these laws, deprived of jurisdiction over 
capital offences, or those punishable with death, and hence, if Christ was 
convicted of the crime o£ sedition, which he was not as these gospels 
all agree in the admission, he was not, this crime was not punishable 
with death if convicted, and to even permit of scourging, the penalty of 
sedition, if proved, and a sentence to that effect being given by the mag- 
istrate, which was not, on the contrary he was acquitted, and that always 
ends all criminal trials in every court under the heavens, in all times 
and this whole absurd story ought to close right here, for it is a gross 
insult to every man's intelligence, to try to convince, him, that, an ade- 
quate power to protect an innocent victim of malice and hate, can so 
far forget its duty, as to permit such an unwarrantable farce to go fur- 
ther, or permit any appeal. 

What did the Roman magistrate 1 care how much Christ reviled the 
Jews, or their religion. The Romans were Pagans, and in religion, 
indifferent to either the Jews or to Christ, but were not indifferent to 
their position and duty, as magistrates over the province committed to 
their care as subordinates to the home authority, well knowing that 
their official life depended upon their fidelity to duty, and the good order 
secured over those they were sent to rule, and when we are called upon, 
or when the Christian bigot is called upon, to give his reasons why 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were fixed upon as the authors of these 
gospels, they ail admit in their commentaries, in the prefaces to these 
four gospels, that no evidence can be found for these reasons, any bet- 



18 Explanation of the Value of Tradition. 

ter than guess work, and there is still more obscurity, and uncertainty, 
as to the time when they were written, but no one of them is bold 
enough to intimate, that they were written in the first century; and if 
you take away the numerous miracles from these gospels, and reduce 
them from supernatural to natural, they are entirely worthless as proof 
or evidence, even if they agreed as to details, which they do not, but are 
in direct conflict on many important points, and this only serves to 
shGw, that an untruthful writer who only records what was at most 
only traditionary, and more frequently his own, inventions, will be as 
untruthful about a natural event, as a supernatural one. If we look 
further along in the new testament for proof that Christ was ever cruci- 
fied, there can be found nothing stronger, than that it is implied in some 
of the epistles, but not asserted, and these slight implications may be, 
and very likely are forgeries, to establish some theological point in the 
endless controversies that have always characterized the Christian 
church. This crucifixion theme will be discussed at greater length in 
another portion of this essay, but before leaving, or dismissing this 
important question for the time, it is considered proper to look a little 
more closely to the details of this transaction, and inquire whether the 
average reader knows clearly what tradition is, and what it is capable of 
doing in the course of the lapse of many years. 

Tradition is unwritten, or verbal depository of sayings and doings, 
of some noted person, which fixes itself in the memory of the spectator 
or listener, and is by him passed along, with such additions and changes 
as memory permits, without any regard to accuracy, and is sure to 
accumulate more to itself, as every succeeding generation omits to 
record it, it finally gets a place in the record, of this individual, and thus 
becomes from that time history or recorded tradition, a very unreliable 
and untruthful way to transmit anything of importance. As a familiar 
example to illustrate this way of getting at thej real facts by tradition, 
When George Washington was a boy, his father, to gratify him, bought 
a hatchet, and he, boy like, so hacked; into a favorite cherry tree in a 
thoughtless way, as to nearly ruin it as a fruit tree, and on being ques- 
tioned in regard to whose act this was said: " Father, I cannot tell a lie, 
I hacked the tree with my little hatchet." Nobody recorded this incident, 
but after Washington had secured fame, and died, this tradition found a 
place in his biography, and is now entirely discredited by his family, as 
never having occurred, but if many hundred years had intervened, before 
this tradition was stricken from the history in which it had secured a 
place, it would be held strictly true. Such is tradition, and such is the 
foundation on which Christianity is standing. 



The Skeptic's Defense. 19 

Of course, it is not to be expected that any Jewish writers would 
admit that Christ ever lived, and much less likely they would admit 
their ancestors ever crucified him, or ever wished to do so, but the 
Talmud is everywhere, among ischolars, admitted ,to be good authority 
on Jewish laws, and that asserts that forty years before the destruction of 
the temple the judgment of capital crimes was taken away from Israel; 
and yet the gospels say, the Jews arrested him without permission, and 
tried, convicted, and sentenced him to death, in their own court, and 
they did this without consultation with, or authority from, the Roman 
magistrate, and they only brought him to Pilate, after they pronounced 
the death sentence, for him to ratify their action. These unlawful pro- 
ceedings were all disallowed, and no notice or approval given to this 
illegal act, and very likely if any such proceedings were ever had, those 
who were the instigators, or perpetrators, were severely punished. But 
that does not, of course, appear in the account, and if it is admitted that 
Jewish law could try Jesus for the crime of sedition, all these proceedings 
were contrary to that law, for he could not have had more than a pre- 
liminary hearing, and the Jewish law expressly prohibits that, and they 
not only violated their own laws in that respect, but actually pronounced 
sentence of death, but dare not put it in force, without Pilate's permis- 
sion. 

Another violation of Jewish law was in trying a criminal in the 
night, which their own laws expressly forbid; such a trial must begin 
and end in the daytime; they may be concluded the same day, if 
acquitted, but not otherv/ise. But two of these gospels say the trial was 
begun and ended the same night, without any intermission. Another 
violation of Jewish law, for we are not now raying anything about 
Roman law, was, in holding a trial for a capital offence on the day before 
th^ Sabbath, or a feast day, and it is clearly apparent that this trial was 
not concluded, and sentence given, till Friday morning, the day before 
the Sabbath, and hence was illegal according to Jewish law. Another 
provision of Jewish law is, that a; criminal could not be arrested, tried, 
condemned and executed, before two days had expired, and it is no 
answer to the above to say, that the Jews simply acted in an illegal arbi- 
trary manner, for before a court composed of seventy-two members of 
the highest standing among their own people, would wholly disregard 
their own laws, when they could just as well have observed them. It is 
far more consistent to think that the whole story is a fiction, invented in 
after times, like miracles. 

Another gross infraction of Jewish law, which forbids a question to 
be asked to the accused is recorded by the first gospel writer, whoever 
he was, who states the high priest not only asked him a question, but 



20 Criticism of the Trial of Christ. 

urged him and adjured him by the living God, tell us, whether thou art 
the Christ or not, the son of the living God, and that when Jesus 
at: swered that he was, the high priest said " he hath spoken blasphemy, 
what further need have we of witnesses, behold ye have heard his blas- 
phemy!" This was the high priest or presiding chief judge, of the 
council or court of seventy-two members, who acted in the capacity of 
a jury. It is also stated in the gospels that those who constituted the 
court, or jury as we now call the body who decide on the guilt or inno- 
cence of a criminal, that they went out of their way, or took extra pains 
or trouble to find witnesses, and these same gospels say these witnesses 
when found, were false witnesses, who swore to a lie. Or in another 
and plainer way of stating it, the judge made himself the prosecutor of 
the accused, and worked up the case against him, thus determining on 
his guilt and Conviction in advance, and manufacturing, or hiring evi- 
dence in advance to accomplish it in that way, thus not only did they 
decide the case in advance of the trial, but suborning, or as we should 
say, subpcenseing witnesses to merely give it the appearance of legality. 
Such proceedings are unheard of, and totally incredible, for no judge in 
any court that was ever organized on earth, ever was corrupt enough to 
do so monstrous an injustice as that would be. 

On the other hand, the judge who presides, invariably gives every 
criminal or accused person, a fair, just trial, and no one would accuse 
these seventy-two, highest in authority in a highly civilized nation, of 
being a, pack of mere loafers, when to reach the position they occupied, 
as the supreme council of an old and proud nation, they must have been 
selected from the very best, and such a body of men never could have 
consented to such a one-sided trial, for no defense was even attempted. 
The prisoner or accused person, had no counsel or witnesses, and it 
must therefore be stated, that he was never arrested, or tried at all, and 
the whole story is nothing but an imaginary picture, clumsily drawn by 
an unskilled artist, in other words a mere lie; for there never was a 
nation enough advanced in civilization to have courts, for trying 
accused persons, that failed to guard with the most scrupulous care, 
every accused} person, and permit him to make a defense, and assign 
him a lawyer to guard him from injustice, if he was too poor to himself 
procure one ; and further, no court on earth, ever condemned a criminal 
or one accused of crime, after one side only was heard, for that would 
be ending the trial in the middle, or in fact no trial at all. 

As another reason for doubting this whole story, the Jewish law did 
not permit the execution of a criminal for blasphemy, and hence the 
admission which the first gospel says was made in answer to the illegal 
question of the high priest, that he was the Christ, the son of God, was 



. The Skeptic's Defense. 21 

not blasphemy, which was a technical term, and consisted in the men- 
tion in derision, or contempt, a sacred name, and the mishna, or as we 
call it, the code, states, that the blasphemer was not guilty until he pro- 
nounced that prohibited sacred name in a trifling or contemptuous 
manner, or what we call profane swearing; so that the claim which these 
false witnesses said he made, that he was the Messiah, even If it had 
been true that he made such a claim, the Pharisees who were his 
accusers and before whom he was arraigned for trial, considered any 
one making such a claim a mere fanatic, for they never expected a 
messiah, and hence it was a harmless or false claim about which they 
would never trouble any one, for it was only the few Sadducees among 
the Tews that ever looked for a messiah, or deliverer, and they were too 
few to have any importance, and instead of inquiring or of considering 
it a false claim, this gospel makes those Pharisees find him guilty, 
merely, because he made the claim which he never did, and they knew 
it before the trial, and it was not blasphemy, to claim as he was made to 
by the illegal question of the high priest in his answer, that he was the 
son of God. 

Every son of Israel, was sometimes or under some circumstances 
given the right to call himself a son of God, and that technical term 
had too many meanings, to be termed in any case, criminal, therefore 
it is too incredible, to be worth while for any one to waste words trying 
to refute, that any set of sane men seventy-two in number, would have 
adopted so illegal a course to destroy an innocent man,, when it would 
have been just as easy to have taken a strictly legal course. Besides 
this they never could have been permitted to act in a judicial capacity, 
without first applying for, and receiving the necessary permission from 
the Roman governor, without which, every such usurped authority 
would be in the nature of rebellion or treason, and would never have 
been ventured on by men as sagacious as these men who were the actors 
in this unheard of scene, for let it be again stated, the Jews were a sub- 
ject, not an independent people. 

So far we have only considered the Jewish side of this story; now 
let us see what part the Romans had in it, as related by these gospels. 
Before any proceedings, having for its ultimate or final object or design 
the destruction of an obnoxious person by the Jewish people or their 
ecclesiastical rulers, application for authority to begin and pursue this 
design would have to be made officially, to the Roman magistrate or 
governor of that province, and his written sanction or permission 
obtained, otherwise such acts as the gospels relate as having been done 
before the Roman magistrate was consulted at all, would have caused 
all concerned in these high-handed and illegal proceedings to be very 



22 Why This Discovery Was Not Before Disclosed. 

severely punished, as for aught we know they were, for usurping the 
authority they did not have, when they only had suspicion, that they 
would not get permission to proceed against an innocent person, 01 
Roman citizen, who had the same right to protection as those had who 
were seeking his destruction, and besides, punishing those who usurped 
authority they did not have, would have nullified all their proceedings, 
including the conviction and sentence, and given the accused not only 
his liberty, but also have imposed a heavy fine on those who had 
brought this humiliation and disgrace on a Roman subject, without 
cause or right. It is very surprising that any writer should ever have 
dared to draw so clumsy and incredible or impossible a picture of an 
important transaction, as this whole fictitious story is, and it is if pos- 
sible still more surprising, that it has never been discovered and dis- 
closed till very lately, and the suspicion is deep and broad that the ras- 
cally priests and theologians have always known it to be nothing but 
an imposition, but no one would ever expect they would give it away, 
so that it had to be discovered and revealed by skepticism, or infidelity, 
and even that has been so feeble and timid, living among, and being 
connected in social and business relations with devout Christian 
people, who would be grieved to see one who on many accounts was 
estimable and worthy of esteem, that they have withheld giving expres- 
sion, to what would inevitably cause his isolation socially, and his 
destruction if in business, and so no one till this present writer, so far 
as he is aware has ever as much as expressed a doubt, as to whether the 
Christ of the gospels was real, and his death as the gospels have delin- 
eated or attempted to prove them both to be mere fiction, and this 
proof comes from these gospels themselves, their own internal evidence 
is all that is required to be cited, and the contradictions and absurdities 
pointed out, to make out a case. The honest Christian believer, who 
has always been told that the new testament is the inspired word of God, 
and understands the declarations of the church with which he has been 
raised to manhood or maturity, which tell him that these gospels are the 
infallible truth, will, of course, not admit either the statements that no 
Christ such as the gospels describe ever lived, or the twin statement that 
he was never crucified, for either of these admissions destroys the whole 
fabric on which the church stands. 

Those, however, who' critically (or with such attention as so import- 
ant a question requires) examine the evidence, without bias, or without 
any preconceived belief in the supernatural, and take the gospel and 
ecclesiastical explanations of them, with the same credence that they 
would such accounts as these if they were found in any other records 
similarly verified, if they critically examine, raise the question whether 



The Skeptic's Defense. 23 

the evidence of the existence of Christ or of his crucifixion is adequate 
to substantiate either proposition. Of course, the unbeliever who 
rejects all miracles as a natural impossibility, reject much besides which 
is connected with the miraculous. The same evidence is relied on to 
prove both, and if it is false as to miracles, it may also be false as to the 
natural events, connected with these miracles, for these are the details or 
parts of such miracles, and if the essential *story is shown to be false, 
the details which are 'added to complete the story, and tend to make it 
seem credible, without the company of the miracle, are out of place, 
and also worthless. 

Just look .at the situation, here is a proud, powerful, rich, prosper- 
ous, and ancient nation, who, on this very account, and for this reason, 
become the object of desire, and the victim of the ambition of the con- 
queror, who led the Roman armies, and by force made the conquest 
of these people, reducing them to mere subjects, wijji no rights, but 
such as the conquerors choose to give them, which are always few and 
small at best. This subject people, find ari obnoxious person in their 
midst, who they wish to destroy, for what reason does not at first 
appear, so the rulers of this subject people, or those who formerly were 
their rulers, but are so no longer, without as much as even making com- 
plaint to their actual rulers, of their desire to be rid of this offensive 
person, and without asking for a warrant, or authority to proceed 
against this person, proceed to make the arrest by mob violence, after 
bribing one of his companions to point him out to this mob, to prevent 
arresting the wrong person, and following them into this private garden, 
where they had taken refuge to avoid discovery. Judas fulfils his part 
of the bargain, made with the instigators and abettors of this mob, and 
gives them the promised signal. They seize him without the slightest 
show of authority, being strong enough to prevent a rescue, if any was 
attempted, bring him before a court already convened, in anticipation of 
the arrival of the mob with the prisoner they were to try, without having 
any jurisdiction or right to sit, bring him to immediate trial without 
allowing him any time to secure counsel, convict him without any evi- 
dence, give no chance for. any defense, sentence him to death for no 
crime, for which, if it had been clearly proved, which it was not, was not 
punishable with death, and then without daring to carry out this sen- 
tence, without sanction, for the first time in this whole outrageous 
unlawful proceeding, apply to Pilate for leave to execute' him. Is that 
the way a conquered, subject people, are permitted to manage such mat- 
ters? By no means ; just the reverse, for none of these impossible things 
were ever done, and any one who chooses, is at liberty to require more 
. proof than the mere declaration of an unknown author,or several authors, 



24 The Unexplainable Contradictions. 

whose account of this transaction is so contradictory, that the precise 
way it was done, must be confined to the one who gives the most full 
and explicit details and is given by the writer of the fourth gospel, who 
is said to be John, but this is not certain. 

This account represents, that, after Pilate had refused to let them 
execute their victim, because no case had been made out or proof of 
any crime, either against Jewish or Roman law, and said : " I find no 
fault in him," they then went to a higher authority, the Roman pro- 
consul, Herod, and preferred a new charge, that of treason or setting 
himself up as king of the Jews, thus he would be a rival or rebel against 
the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, and after another one-sided trial, 
he also said, you have brought no proof; he is not guilty. And now is 
related the most glaringly incredible statement, that the history of the 
most infamous wretch that ever existed on earth can parallel. 

John says that Pilate said, after Herod had found him innocent, and 
sent him back to him, " Take ye him and crucify him for I find no fault 
in him." Now, Pilate did not deliver Jesus up to the Jews for them to 
crucify him, because this same John says that the whole of the actual 
process of crucifying him, was done by the Romans. Pilate first 
scourged him, which was the legal penalty for the crime of sedition, if 
it had been proved, which it was not, as Pilate himself said, and there- 
fore he was not scourged, or as we say whipped. The soldiers who 
were Romans made a crown of thorns and put it on his head, in mock- 
ery or derision; they also put on him a scarlet robe to imitate a bogus 
king in mockery. Pilate wrote the inscription, and put in on the cross ; 
the soldiers crucified him, and reviled him, and cast lots to see who 
should have his garments, and a soldier thrust a spear through his heart, 
to be sure he was dead, and lastly, Pilate gave away his dead body, and 
this account contradicts itself, for it distinctly asserts, that Pilate gave 
him over to the Jews for them to crucify him, and then proceeds to 
relate his crucifixion wholly by the Romans. This is as near the case, 
as is possible to gather from so contradictory an account as is every- 
where found showing it to be mere guess work or invention. 

Cicero, a few years before, as the gospels assert Pilate put to death 
Jesus, an innocent man, on the cross, spoke these words to the Roman 
senate, when an inferior magistrate, named Verres, had put to death on 
a cross, a Roman citizen, innocent, named Publius Gavus Cosanus, 
while these words, "I am a Roman citizen" was on his lips; words, 
which in the remotest regions, are a passport to protection ; you ordered 
him to death, to death on a cross: "Is it come to this? Shall an 
inferior magistrate, a governor who holds his whole power by leave of 
the Roman people, in a Roman province, scourge, bind, torture, and put 



Jewish Death Penalty not Crucifixion. 25 

to an infamous death, an innocent Roman Citizen? It must not be per- 
mitted!" 

Now, it is plain Roman law, that no crime charged against Jesus, 
was punishable with death, supposing it had been proved, for " Nean- 
der," the great church historian says, in his life of Christ, section two 
hundred and eighty-four: " No accusation of heresy, blasphemy, or 
false assumption of a prophetic or divine character, is a capital offence, 
even, according to the Jews' religion ; and yet, these gospels represent 
him, as having been handed over by Pilate, to the Jews, to be crucified 
under their law, for a trifling offence, and which as we have seen is not 
punishable with death, even if it had been proved, even under Jewish 
law." Again, the execution of the death penalty was in no case by cru- 
cifixion, except the convicted criminal was a slave, or guilty, and so 
proved, of the very lowest and desperate crimes. No Roman citizen, or 
subject, could be crucified, and hence no such an illegal or unprece- 
dented a case as this, would, or even could have been had, for no 
Roman magistrate, would dare violate Roman laws to such an extent, 
merely to gratify a spirit of revenge or malice, of some of tHeir subjects. 

Now let us see how improbable it is that the Jews of that day, and in 
that subject condition, would dare violate their own laws, even if they 
were permitted to have that authority granted them, by the Romans, 
which they were clearly not, and there is nowhere to be found in these 
gospels, any intimation they ever had. Neither Jesus, or any other 
man could even be put to death in any manner for the offence charged 
against him, for only scourging was the penalty, and that even was for 
only those who were clearly guilty, and were so proved, and had a sen- 
tence to that penalty, after a fair trial and conviction. 

Crucifixion was never a Jewish mode of inflicting the death sen- 
tence, and it was absolutely unknown at that time, and always has been 
among the Jews, for their modes of executing criminals who were sen- 
tenced to death were four only: Stoning, burning, beheading, and 
strangling. This last was rarely used, and when it was used, the 
victim was seized by two men by the throat, and, after being strangled 
till dead, in a very aggravated case of crime, he was tied to a stake, or 
tree, and left to be devoured by beasts. Furthermore, the scarlet robe, 
the crown of thorns, and other of physical indignities, such as beating, 
spitting upon, and mocking insults, and references such as are in the 
gospels described, were impossible; for the Romans always protected 
their prisoners, and convicted criminals, from injury or insult, after con- 
viction as well as before, and at the trial, and w r ould never allow any 
such insult, for they had the sole management of this execution, as 
John's gospel fully describes it to have occurred; and there is still 



26 The Skeptic's Defense. 

another detail, more improbable than any other so far found. Roman 
law always obliged the victim to carry his own cross and John says 
Jesus went out carrying his own cross, but the other three gospels con- 
tradict this, or this contradicts theirs, for they assert that Simon, a 
Cyrenian, was compelled to carry the cross. Who was Simon? He 
was a chance spectator, who just happened to be there from curiosity, 
and had no connection whatever with this case, or this criminal, and 
therefore to compel an innocent man, without any process or authority, 
to submit to such*an indignity, was not only illegal, but an outrage, the 
Romans would never have allowed, and that is simply another lie told 
by three, and the fourth refused to confirm it but contradicted it. 

Another huge lie says, that the inscription that Pilate wrote and put 
upon the cross, was, " This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," 
and such an inscription would give no intimation of his crime, for 
which the crucified one was made thus to suffer, when Roman law 
obliged those who superintended executions to put on the cross an 
inscription, the crime for which this was the penalty and only that; 
hence no insulting words would be permitted. Another improbable 
circumstance, that seriously vitiates this account is, that some unknown 
stranger, who has not thus far been heard of in this proceeding, or any 
where else in these gospels, named Joseph, of Arimathea, also an 
unheard of place, never again mentioned in the gospels, comes to Pilate, 
and begs the body of Jesus, when he knew, that Pilate had no more 
right to dispose of that body, than he, Joseph, had to steal it, and he 
knew he could never steal it, for a strong guard of soldiers was always . 
placed about a crucified criminal, who nearly always lived from three to 
six days, to prevent such as would, or might otherwise release them, 
and restore them again to health, if not dead, and when dead they were 
left to slow decomposition, and it must be explained here, that no crim- 
inal that was ever crucified under Roman law, was ever spiked to a 
cross through the hands and feet, they were lashed with cords in a 
secure manner, which was minutely described in the sentence, so that 
this manner of nailing victims to a cross, was first -invented and put 
in practice, when the Christian fanatic persecuted and put to death here- 
tics, after other modes of the most diabolical torture had failed to cause 
the victim accused of heresy, or a difference of theological opinion, to 
recant, when thousands on thousands, of as good and virtuous men 
and women as ever lived, have been, by these holy devils, both tortured 
and crucified, by nailing to the cross, for a mere difference of opinion, 
honestly entertained, and firmly held, and boldly asserted and for 
which they chose rather to die, than abandon, and to which they had 
the same right, as those who persecuted them had to theirs, but they 



The Humanity of Roman Executioners. 27 

were in a minority, consequently, not physically able to defend them- 
selves, against this vile nest of Christian bigots, some of whom were 
Popes, others cardinals, bishops, and lower grades of clergy, and even 
Christian emperors, for it is a notorious fact so certified to by all history, 
and not denied by the Roman Catholics, that the most outrageous 
crimes, such as would disgrace the lowest savages that ever existed, have 
been perpetrated by not only the sanction, but by the express orders of 
the highest ecclesiastical authority in the Christian church, through the 
entire period when it was able, unopposed, to act out its devilish pur- 
pose, to produce absolute obedience to its orders/'and absolute uniform- 
ity of the belief of its adherents, to such doctrines and requirements as 
the hierarchy might, from time to time prescribe, and a similarity in 
this respect is to be found in the Protestant wing of Christians. Their 
highest authority if they could prevent it, would not allow any other 
person, to either doubt their honesty or their sincerity, or to entertain a 
different view than their own, but if able would compel every person to 
receive and hold his or their views, with' uniformity, and tenacity, and 
they would forcibly exterminate the whole human race, that persisted 
in refusing to adopt his or their views, with the satisfying conviction, 
that their system was the only one fit to survive, when at the same time 
they are totally unable to either prove its authority, its origin, or its 
superiority, the whole in both cases, Catholic and Protestant, being 
nothing but a dream of superstitious fanaticism, not worth one minute's 
thought. 

Another weak point connected with this fictitious tragedy of the 
crucifixion of Christ is, that no place ever has been found, or ever will 
be, by travelers about the city of Jerusalem, to correspond to Mount Cal- 
vary, where this scene was said to have occurred, after the most diligent 
search, or to the garden of Gethsemane, where the arrest took place after 
this victim had suffered such terriffie uncontrollable fear, that he did 
or was said to have done, what nc other human being ever did or can 
ever do, for, it in its nature is impossible and that was to sweat great 
drops of blood, falling down to the ground. Why was all this fear real- 
ized in his case more than in others who have been executed in this bar- 
barous manner, for the account says this result had been long forseen, 
and anticipated, and therefore was no sudden surprise, and a mental 
preparation for fortitude to endure such an emergency was made several 
days previous, and the reality was not worse than was expected, and 
was both necessary and unavoidable, or a resurrection from the dead 
would not have been possible, and hence salvation, as it had been 
planned by the impostors who invented this scheme, would not be com- 
plete. 



28 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Another improbable circumstance in this transaction is, that Jesus, 
when he was on the cross, and in such agony as any victim in such a sit- 
uation always is, that he should decline to drink the anodyne, which is 
given invariably under Roman law to alj crucified victims, to deaden 
their sensibility, and prevent their outcries caused by the agony they 
inevitably always endure, -and also to relieve the intense thirst, which is 
always experienced in this situation. This anodyne, was composed of 
an acid wine, in which myrrh was mixed in the right proportion to both 
relieve thirst, and to quiet pain, and was given as an act of mercy or 
pity, and not for an intended insult, as the gospel would have us believe, 
when Matthew says they offered him vinegar, mingled with gall, of 
which he merely tasted, but refused to drink, and all the other gospels 
say that it was simply vinegar that was offered him, and he drinked it, 
and immediately died, or gave up the ghost, which is the same thing. 

So far from it being the intention or wish of the Romans, who con- 
ducted this execution, to intensify the sufferings of the victims who were 
so unfortunate as to come to this intense suffering, a lingering one last- 
ing several days, they provided these simple means to mitigate some- 
what the suffering, and as Jesus is represented to have asked for a 
draught to quench his thirst, and this misrepresentation of the gospel 
writer says they gave him only vinegar, and that had the effect to imme- 
diately kill him when, he had only been on the cross about six hours, 
there must be a mistake some where, for, Pilate wondered if he was 
already dead, when Joseph of Arimathea came to beg his body, as 
much as four hours later, and found him still alive and killed him by 
thrusting a spear through his heart. Now, none of these gross insults 
which these gospels assert the Roman soldiers were said to have been 
made, such as the crown of thorns, the scarlet robe, the smiting with a 
reed, the spitting upon, or this reviling, bidding him to come down from 
the cross, would either have been as much as desired by the Romans, 
much less allowed for they were only indifferent actors in this drama 
by appointment, not from choice, and in whose behalf this victim made 
the last prayer he ever made, when he is reported to have asked his 
father to forgive them, because they knew not what they were doing, 
or in other words, they were obliged by their calling as soldiers, to do 
the bidding of their superiors; and he would never have done this, if 
they had exceeded their imperative duty, by heaping these, gross insults 
upon him. j | ! 

xAjiother objection of much importance is the statement, that he was 
after all this seen alive by many persons, at various times. St. Paul 
says he was first seen by Cephas, then of the twelve, afterwards by more 
than five hundred brethren at once, and last of all he was seen of 



A Demand for Definite Proof. 29 

u me also, as of one born out of due time," referring to the time when he 
was struck blind, and unable for many days to see even his own food, 
but still he then saw the newly crucified and risen Christ, who up to that 
time he bitterly hated to as much as hear his name repeated. The 
unbeliever, of course, rejects the whole story, and the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the body of anything dead; in consequence he says, that 
Christ, if he ever lived at all, which he disputes, concludes, he at any rate 
was never crucified, and these are the only sensible conclusions and dis- 
poses of the whole controversy, about which no amount of controversy 
will ever be able to shed the first ray of light, and finally in view of all 
the difficulties named so far in the examination of this question, his- 
torical, legal, and physical, the question becomes a serious one to the 
honest, sincere Christian, but only an indifferent one to the skeptic, 
whether Jesus was actually really crucified, not a question of details 
merely, but the reality of the main fact, for it is the essentials or main 
facts after all that are the most doubtful. 

It has seemed to me ever since I abandoned the hopes and fears I 
once had with reference to the alleged truths and declarations not only 
of scripture, but of the Christian ministers of all orthodox sects, that 
they ought to be called upon to prove some of their declarations as 
well as those of the scriptures upon which 'they found these assump- 
tions. Having personally had for fifty years all the Christian experi- 
ence which is required to constitute a genuine church member, and 
having actually belonged to one of the most intensely orthodox 
churches in existence for thirty years, and partaken of the" communion 
regularly all that time, unless prevented by unavoidable reasons, I con- 
sider I am more entitled to require the Christian ministers to give some 
satisfactory reason why any such a system as the Christian has any 
right to exist at all. Accordingly I deemed it a duty to address several 
able ministers, letters which had for their object, to, if possible, extract 
from them some, as much as probable, reason why Christianity ought 
not to be regarded as a fraud and an imposition on the human race. I 
have therefore concluded to record for future use to all such as shall be 
curious enough to care to; read the same, the somewhat extended cor- 
respondence held by me with the pastor of the First Baptist Church in 
Rochester, N. Y., which is a sample of several others which was had 
with other able ministers, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregational, 
Jewish, etc. 

My first letter to this pastor was dated October 16th, 1892, and is in 
these words: A preacher of the gospel is in one sense a public man. 
The undersigned heard you preach this morning for the first time, 
(having gone into the church more to hear the music than the sermon), 



30 The Skeptic's Defense. 

from the following text of scripture found in First Corinthians, second 
chapter, second verse, as follows : " For I determined not to know any- 
thing among you, but Jesus Christ and him crucified." Your earnest- 
ness and your apparent sincerity excited my admiration, and your 
ability as a preacher is cheerfully conceded, but your subject " Christ 
and him crucified," requires in my judgment more proof than mere 
assumption which was all you offered to give that he was ever cruci- 
fied at all or even that such a being ever existed, and it also requires 
more proof than can be found in the four gospels that any such Christ 
as they describe, even ever lived on this earth at all for on both of these 
subjects there is in these gospels so much obscurity and contradiction 
that no intelligent or reasonable conclusion can be found. You, like all 
ministers, must take many such things for granted and seek for no 
proof when we honest but ignorant laymen require proof stronger than 
mere assertion or assumption. I would like to have you correspond 
with me, if it suits your views of propriety, and in that way try and con- 
vince me by proof which would be admissible in any court or before any 
intelligent jury that, " first," Jesus Christ ever lived at any time, and 
" second," if he ever lived, that he was ever crucified. These are plain 
questions so no mistake is possible as to their meaning. I never allow 
myself to disturb the simple-minded, honest Christian lay believer with 
any question of this kind that might create doubt and anxiety but you 
ministers ought not to be averse or unwilling to either give or receive 
light on so important a question even from a layman, and while I may 
not fully reveal to you, at this time, my identity, I will state to you, I 
am an aged man, near 76, and am not a Jew nor a Unitarian, but have 
been a church member in St. Peter's Presbyterian Church, in Rochester, 
thirty or more years, and my present address is Ridgeland, Monroe 
County, N. Y. I am, of course, aware that it is somewhat impertinent 
for an entire stranger to thus thrust himself upon your notice, but you 
must not feel obliged to as much as answer this letter unless your sense 
of propriety causes you to be willing to do so. 

Yours very respectfully, 

C. M. L. 

The following answer was received, dated Rochester, N. Y., October 
18, 1892: 

Mr. L. M. C, Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of Sunday last. I appreciate your kind remarks about my " ear- 
nestness and apparent sincerity." If I know myself at all^ I am sincere 
when I preached Jesus Christ, as the one Saviour and Lord, the Light 
and Hope of human souls. It does not seem to me, however, that 



The Search After Reliable Information. 31 

much profit could result from a correspondence between us, unless we 
first knew each other a little better. I doubt not that you are often in 
the city, could you not do me the kindness to call upon me or notify 
me when and where I might call upon you? I am at home every day 
between 12 and 2 o'clock. It would be a real pleasure for me to meet 
with you and to tell you why I believe in Christ as I do. One thing is 
certain, my belief fills me with hope, and good cheer, and undying 
inspiration both as regards this world and tfiQ world to which we are 
both journeying. Hoping to hear from you again, I am very truly 
yours. 

He did hear from me again in the following letter, dated October 
20th, 1892: 

Rev. and Dear Sir: I was both agreeably surprised and profoundly 
thankful on the receipt of your polite and interesting letter of the 18th 
instant, which came to me the same evening. I did not mean to leave 
the impression with you that I desired or expected an extended cor- 
respondence with you, unless it should in some sense become necessary 
to enlighten both of us on these, not only to us but also to all men import- 
ant questions, the advent and the crucifixion of Christ; and I concede 
the reasonable requirement you suggest, that we both ought to know 
each other better before entering on such a controversy or correspond- 
ence as would very likely develope. I would be glad to meet you at 
ycur home, but I fear it will be impossible. I thank you, however, for 
the invitation, and I will reciprocate by inviting you to visit me at my 
humble home which is situated in the town of Brighton. I very seldom 
visit the city, and never go unless some urgent business obliges me to 
go, and then I only stay as long as is necessary to transact that bus- 
iness. I can, however, see no good result or purpose in a personal 
interview, for I have had many such with able ministers, and have not 
so far found one that can remove my difficulties, and it was a mere acci- 
dent that awakened my hope from the general drift and tenor of the 
theme you so earnestly and ably handled last Sunday morning, that 
you could, and would refer me to some historical proof other than 
the new testament, that any Jesus Christ, such as is there delineated or 
described, ever lived. As we may never become acquainted personally 
with each other, I will endeavor to plainly describe to you who, and 
what I am, and I have described where I can be found. 

I have already told you I am an old man, I will add that I am a Massa- 
chusetts Yankee, born and reared to maturity in the town of Lenox, Berk- 
shire County. I have lived in Monroe County fifty-three years. I made a 
public profession of religion, or in other words was converted or regener- 



32 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ated,over fifty-one years ago, after a thorough religious training, by both 
parents and by the Sunday-school from early childhood. I united with 
St. Peter's church on profession of faith in Christ, thirty-two years since, 
and for more than thirty years was an active and consistent member 
thereof, and in every way was a consistent Christian believer, if I have 
a true conception of what that is, but on account of changes in my con- 
victions respecting the genuine nature of the claims of the Christian 
religion, which would require more space than would be proper to use 
in a letter to you, to describe, but was described to the pastor of the 
church to which I belonged, in a letter to him, I felt it my duty to ask 
him to cause my name to be erased from the roll of membership about 
two years since, saying to him that he could see as well as I could that 
it would be inconsistent with both of us to longer continue this relation. 
Rev. Alfred J. Hutton in a long letter to me afterwards informed me 
that my wish had been unanimously but reluctantly complied with by 
the session, at a regular meeting, and I have ever since been free, and I 
am still endeavoring to satisfy myself , by inquiring of intelligent Christian 
ministers, of all orthodox sects and Rev. W. C. Gannett, who, although 
a Unitarian, and therefore will not be considered by such as you any 
authority on such a question, will be acknowledged an able scholar and 
an honorable gentleman by all ministers. Rev. Max Landsberg, who 
although a Jew, is conceded by all Christians a very learned and liberal 
minded gentleman, and none of these or even the notorious Howard 
McQueary, can refer me to one item of historical proof which is any 
better than a guess that the Christ of the new testament was more than 
a fiction, or his religion any more real than an imaginary deception, or 
a farce and a fraud. I therefore thought that as you stand in such an 
intimate relation, as the pastor of such men as Dr. Strong, President of 
the Theological Seminary; Dr. Osgood and Dr. Kendrick, two learned 
professors of distinction, you all combined could refer me to t some 
proofs on this point that would be convincing. I hope that my doubts and 
my inquiries will not disturb you so as to diminish your hope and good 
cheer in prospect of what is to be your destiny after the short journey 
of life is over, but you have yet many years to cling to this anchor of 
hope before you will have held it as long and as strongly as I did, and I 
assure you that I feel, after letting go my hold, more secure than ever 
I had felt while I had a firm grip that seemed likely to last as long as 
life itself. If I have not now introduced myself to your notice, so as to 
give you a desire to comply with my request you, of course, will refuse 
to notice me any further, but let me assure -you, I am .sincere in my wish 
for this information respecting the reality of the foundation on which the 



The Search Continued. 33 

Christian church is built, and you ministers can have no more urgent 
duty to perform than to remove such difficulties as this when they are 
in this direct manner brought to your notice about (to yourself as well 
as me and all men) a vital question, otherwise the impression will abide 
and grow stronger, that you cannot do it. This is to all Christian 
ministers as well as their dupes a question more important in its nature 
and results than any or all others, and as far as I know, has never been 
raised in this form by anyone not a Jew, and lest the Jews may be shown 
to be right in rejecting Christ and his religion, Christians must not only 
assert, but prove and defend this position before the world, or the 
Christian system will perish for want of ability and energy to defend and 
maintain it on the part of its great and most able ministers. 

Very truly yours, 

L. M. C. 
November I, 1892. 
Mr. L. M. C, My Dear Sir: Your interesting letter of October 19th 
was duly received, and I thank you for confiding to me what it contains 
of your personal history. I do not assume that I am capable of instruct- 
ing one of your years and experience yet I trust that I mav sometime 
find the opportunity of meeting you. If not able to help one another, 
I can at least give a reason for the hope that is in me. As to Jesus 
Christ's historical reality and His place in the world's history, perhaps 
no question has received more of scholarly attention. Of course you 
know that points like the following are established if anything in history 
is established. 1. The existence of a remarkable personage known as 
Jesus Christ. 2. That He had a large number of followers devotedly 
attached to Him and His teachings. 3. That He taught in Judea. 4. 
That He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. 5. That the number of 
His followers increased greatly after His death. 6. That His followers 
worshipped Him as God. 7. That they were distinguished by the 
purity of their lives. It is also evident that to-day the name of Christ 
is the most potent force in this world, and that His religion is the 
religion of the progressive nations of the world. Now, as to Christ's 
supernatural character, this is a large and weighty question. Of course 
there are books without number relating to it and discussing it in every 
conceivable way. To name only one, " Nature, and the Supernatural," 
by Horace Bushnell, is a book of much value and suggestiveness. 
Probably you are already acquainted with it. For myself nothing is 
more convincing to me than the picture presented of Christ in the four 
gospels. Christ is His own witness. His character, His teachings, tell 
their own story of the divine nature of Him whose they are. Hoping 
that I may hear from you again, I am, dear sir, very truly yours. 



34 The Skeptic's Defense. 

November 29, 1892. 

My Dear Sir: Any gentleman, whether he is a minister of the gospel 
or not, is obliged, as well by the law of etiquette as by that of good 
breeding, to as much as acknowledge the receipt of a letter that he had 
invited his correspondent to write and inform him if such was the fact 
that he desired no further correspondence with him. I have now 
waited about four weeks' to get your response to my letter of the 4th 
instant, with the impression that perhaps you needed time to investigate 
and consult authorities in history, so as to be able to definitely answer 
my two questions which I am sure are too direct and to the point to be 
either overlooked or misunderstood by any person of average intelli- 
gence, but I am obliged to infer from your long silence that either you 
cannot or will not gratify my expressed wish. I cheerfully concede that 
your many duties in connection with your office as pastor of a large 
church gives you little time to devote to one, who like me, has no claim 
whatever to your further notice, and all my object in this communica- 
tion is to learn your conclusion, as to any further acquaintance or cor- 
respondence with me, being wished for or not. I think, however, both 
of us could be profited by some further discussion of so important a 
subject, especially to all ministers as the foundation or the founder of 
Christianity being real instead of fictitious or imaginary. I am sure it 
has never occurred to you that any person, not a Jew, ever had a doubt 
about the reality of the advent of Christ, and so you have never sought 
for any other evidence than such as the four gospels furnish. Hoping 
to soon hear from you, I am very sincerely any truly yours, 

L. M. C. 

The letter to which I was awaiting an answer is here inserted, dated 
November 4th, 1892. 

My Dear Sir: I am extremely gratified that you consider me of so 
much importance as to wish a further acquaintance with me, or at 
least you have in your last, expressed a wish to hear from me again. I 
feel that I am not competent to instruct you, notwithstanding my riper 
age, and in some respects a more extensive experience. I am, how- 
ever, sorry to see in you, as I have seen in every minister with whom I 
have corresponded, a disposition to evade, or pretend not to understand 
the real question about which my inquiry demanded a categorical or 
satisfactory answer. I did not ask you, nor am I anxious to have you 
reveal to me the reason why you have the hope that is satisfactory to 
yourself, unless you can found such hope on more than a fictitious or 
imaginary character and demonstrate to me that the Christ described in 
the gospels is genuine or real, and the teachings ascribed to him in these 



Delay in Letter Leads to Confusion. 35 

gospels anything better than copies of other more ancient philosophers, 
and moralists from whom all these teachings of any real value was 
derived. 

You are aware as well as I am that the divine inspiration of the 
Bible is called in question by as able theologians and scholars as the 
world has ever produced, and that others of like ability have found it 
to be necessary to defend it, and of course an undecided question, such 
as this admits of doubt and requires proof to dispel such doubt, but I 
have neither the ability or disposition to discuss that question, but I 
have arrived at what is satisfactory to my own mind, to the conclusion, 
that all so called holy or sacred writings are so only as far as false 
instruction has made them appear so, and that this false instruction per- 
tains alike to all forms of religious belief, and to none is its effect more 
deplorable than in the form both you and I have been instructed and 
trained up in. Christianity, therefore, to be enduring, must not be a 
deception or even an imposition. Before we can rely on the truth of 
any history and in particular ancient history we must know what facil- 
ities the historian had, and what were his abilities to discover and to 
record what is important to substantiate any important fact related in 
such history, and besides contemporaneous historians must confirm 
and not contradict each other. It is to me evident that not one sentence 
that is reliable, can be found in ancient history, or since this era, which 
is called the Christian era', that any remarkable man lived in Judea, in 
the period when Pilate and Herod were there as Roman magistrates. 

The history or record containing the details of their administration 
of the affairs entrusted to them are abundant in Rome to-day, and there 
is nowhere in such records the most distant allusion to any of the scenes 
of the birth, life, teachings, or death of such a remarkable person as the 
gospels describe Jesus Christ of Nazareth to have been, or that either 
Christ or the two thieves were ever heard of as being accused or tried 
before them, or of their crucifixion. These are the disclosures of the 
gospels alone, and are nowhere else to be found, and the prefaces in 
every commentary I have ever consulted of all the new testament books 
can give nothing better than a guess, either who wrote these several 
fragments or when or where they were written, so that we are left 
entirely in the dark as to whether any of the scenes recorded in the acts 
of the apostles ever occiirred,consequently we only know that a fanatical 
set of men, both Jews and pagans, contrived a new form of religion, 
and invented a foundation on which to construct the 1 fabric, that after 
many trials, vicissitudes and partial failures, by much perserverance, 
finally developed into Christianity, but that they were ever remarkable 
for the purity of their lives. I have never heard, unless you refer to indi- 



36 The Skeptic's Defense. 

viduals and that is the case everywhere, without the slightest reference 
to religion of any description or the want of it, and that the early 
Christians were instructed from their infancy, just as both you and I 
were to consider Christ, God, may easily be imagined, but that in either 
case proves nothing, neither does it prove the Christian religion gen- 
uine or superior to others, merely because it is so widely disseminated 
for the name of that vile impostor as both you and I know him to be. 
Mahomet has completely obliterated all but the mere name of Christ from 
the source where it originated, and now holds the holy land in the most 
slavish subjection, and rules more than ten times as many of the human 
race as can be counted as even nominal Christians, for of what conse- 
quence are such Christians in name only, as both the Greek and Roman 
Catholics? They are no better than pagans or Mahometans, or even 
Mormons. Of course, I speak of them not as individuals, but as a 
whole, and where and when Christianity has followed commerce into 
regions inaccessible before commerce opened the way, and thus afforded 
protection to the missionaries, the results are so infinitessimal as not to 
be worth estimating, because the vices which are by such agencies as 
commerce and the intercourse with Christian nations are sure to follow 
the missionaries more than neutralize any favorable impression the 
expensive missionary enterprise can make. 

You rightly characterize the supernatural about Christ as a weighty 
question. From your standpoint it may be, but from mine there is no 
question whatever about it, for I am persuaded and indeed I know, that 
if Christ was ever introduced into this world at all, which! is yet to be 
demonstrated, it was by or through the same process as every other 
living animal of whatever species has been and that story related in the 
gospels of Matthew and Luke, of miraculous or supernatural interven- 
tion must be soon abandoned, because it is too revolting to the universal 
experience of intelligent beings in this age of light and knowledge, to 
be any longer tolerated as McQueary has clearly, rightly and fully dem- 
onstrated, and so have many others, and all the books that have ever 
been written to try to establish the supernatural, including Bushnell's, 
which you mention with seeming approval, leave the question more 
undecided and mysterious than they found it. 

What is super-nature? If a reality it is superior or antecedent to 
nature, which is an impossibility not worth a moment's effort to discuss, 
for when a finite mind endeavors to penetrate into regions beyond 
nature, the most highly educated and the most gifted minds are imme- 
diately, lost and then they instinctively, or by reason of false instruction 
resort to that humbug called faith, to by that means extricate their 



The Supernatural Origin Must Be Abandoned. 37 

feeble reason from hopeless despair and ruin, for faith can only seize 
and apply what the reasoning faculty of man rejects, or in other words, 
what is beyond the scope of reason. I have no right, or even wish to 
disturb your convincing confidence in the reality of the Christ of the 
gospels, for that would deprive you not only of the hope you now seem 
to have of a blessed immortality, but also deprive you of the means of 
earning a living unless you are ready, like most other ministers, situated 
as you are, to adopt the role of hypocrite, and continue to preach what 
you no longer believe, which I am sure you are not, or never will stoop 
to so unworthy a device. 

Permit me to say in this place, what I should have said before, that 
it is a question of no importance whether such men as Socrates, Plato, 
or Julius Caesar ever lived or not, to either me or any one else, but when 
history is full of irresistable evidence thoroughly confirmed that they 
actually lived, and also abounds in unimportant details descriptive of 
their lives, characters and teachings, and omits entirely to notice the 
only, to the Christian, really important character that has ever lived on 
earth, and thus leaves such an important event to be announced in an 
impossible contradictory manner, by some obscure, unknown individu- 
als, of whose identity there is no evidence, nor of their ability or hon- 
esty, the suspicion of imposition, fraud and deception is justifiable, and 
a searching inquiry is urgently demanded of those, like you, who hold 
the affirmative side of the question, to clear away the doubts that may 
arise, and this reasonable requirement should be most cheerfully 
responded to by them when the question is thus brought to their 
notice. I do not say this cannot be done, but such as I who have these 
honest doubts have no resource, but to call upon such able theologians 
as yourself and such associates of yours, as I have named, to give an 
answer to these, reasonable questions. 

And now a closing word is necessary in regard to the character of 
Christ and his teachings. Neither you, or John Stuart Mill, which you 
quote with so much seeming satisfaction, are any better able to judge 
of that than I am, for what any one can know about those subjects all 
rests on the disclosures of the gospels, and if the supernatural element 
and the miraculous is eliminated which has no right there, because it is 
false; and notice that the teachings, such as allegories and parables are 
repeated by the three first gospels, and in some cases by all four, so 
varied, that they seem other than repetitions, and that they are not orig- 
inal with Christ, but were discovered and promulgated by several previ- 
ous moralists, it reduces not the value of the moral precepts, but the 
claim of original discovery, and makes the writers, who record them, as 
the teachings of Christ, open to the charge of willful forgery and decep- 
tion. 



38 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Now, as to his personal character, but little is revealed of the other 
side, while his eulogists have made the favorable side appear prominent, 
and while it may be, and is conceded that nothing criminal was really 
disclosed at his trial, such general personal enmity and hate as is there 
made prominent must have had some more serious cause than mere 
rivalry or fear that he was about to usurp the temporal power belonging 
to the Romans, who ruled Judea at that time. I will refrain from more 
remarks at this time, lest I occupy too much of your valuable time. 
Hoping that you will not be offended or disturbed by what I have 
written, and that you will write me another of your beautiful, compre- 
hensive letters, I remain very sincerely and truly your friend, 

L. M. C. 

While my letter of the 29th, inquiring the reason why the above 
letter had not been answered was in transit, and before it was received, 
Mr. — had mailed the answer to me, which I had been expecting, so he 
immediately sent an explanation as follows : 

Rochester, November 29, 1892, 2:15 P. M. 

My Dear Sir: At noon to-da;y (and your letter came to me at 2 
o'clock), I mailed a letter to you, when I returned home after a week's 
absence. Pressure of work prevented me from writing to you at once. 
If mv letter sent to-day seems to have a good deal of the personal ele- 
ment in it, this is explained by your own letter to me of the 4th instant. 
If you write to me again may I ask that you put in definite form 
exactly what your questions are. I will then tell you what answer I 
make to them. So far you have suggested questions, but you have not 
stated them definitely, nor have you told the exact attitude of your own 
mind towards them. 

Very truly yours, 

P. S. As you suppose, I am a very busy man, and it is seldom that 
I write such long letters as I have to you. 

November 30th, 1892. 

Dear Sir: I have both of your letters of the 29th instant, and doubt- 
less you have mine of the same date. You have been candid and plain, 
which is pleasing to me, but I cannot see how you could have failed to 
understand my questions, for they are^defmite and exact, but as you did 
not invite me to respond I am in some doubt, whether it fvill be proper 
for me to answer at length, some of your erroneous statements and con- 
clusions, and shall await your permission or wish for me to do so, which 
you can indicate by postal card or otherwise, as soon as you receive this, 
in the meantime I am truly and sincerely yours, 

L. M. C. 



The Confusion Explained and Corrected. 39 

November 9, 1892. 

Dear Sir: Absence from the city for a week has delayed my reply 
to yours of the 4th instant. I do not quite understand you. Do you 
question whether such a person as Jesus ever lived or existed? It has 
not occurred to me to discuss that question because it is one so com- 
pletely settled. Do not all the unbelievers who wrote about Him, Renan, 
Strauss and all of them start out on the basis that such a person as 
Jesus Christ lived? (Certainly they do. They differ from Christians as 
to what they think about Jesus, but they never call in question the fact 
of His life on the earth. This being the case, why should I spend time 
in proving that he lived? It would be like expending time to prove 
that the earth revolves on its axis, or proving any other fact which is 
universally accepted by the intelligence of our day. No ! I do not evade 
the question, I simply cannot think that to you or any other intelligent 
man it is a question. When I said that Christ is his own witness, I had 
in mind what John Stuart Mill said, of course you know he was an 
unbeliever. He said that the character of Christ given in the four 
gospels is genuine, that is to say that such a man lived, and had such a 
character, because no one lived at that time capable of depicting such a 
character unless that character was real. 

Where do you expect to find accounts of Jesus? Were the Jews, 
who killed him, likely to say much about him? Yet Josephus, their 
historian, does tell of Him. Were the Romans likely to concern them- 
selves about one who was put to death as a malefactor in a distant 
province of the empire? But very soon after Jesus' time, you find dis- 
ciples of His everywhere in the empire, and then references to these 
Christian disciples are found in Roman writings. 

To refer to only one of these, the Roman historian, " Tacitus " in 
giving an account of the burning of Rome, in the time of Nero, speaks 
of the Christians (which he calls a pernicious superstition), had spread 
and how the Christians were persecuted. He testifies, therefore, to the 
death of Christ, to the spread of his religion, to the fact that within 34 
years of Christ's death many Christians were found in Rome. Where 
did all these Christians come from, so early as the first century, if there 
was no one called Jesus Christ? I need not mention other Roman 
writings which refer to the Christians, such as the letter of Pliny. As 
to the testimony which you speak of concerning other influential men 
there is another side to it. Take Homer, for example, one of the few 
greatest poets. Nothing is know about him but there are his poems, 
the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are the witnesses of his life and his 
power. Then take Socrates, we know a great deal about him. From 
what sources? From his disciples, Plato and Xenophon, yet the 



40 The Skeptic's Defense. 

accounts of one differ very much from the other. There were no 
authentic accounts of the last half of the life of Socrates, and Plato and 
Xenophon are almost our only real authorities of his life and opinions. 
But does any one doubt that Socrates lived, and was the most influen- 
tial character of his time? And as to Shakespeare, is it not one of the 
remarkable facts that comparatively so little is known of the actual 
details of his life? Now, whom would you expect to preserve accounts 
of Jesus, if not his disciples, and this they did. When you talk about 
the obscurity or inability of those disciples, I have simply to remind 
you that they were able to establish the Christian church, so firmly that 
it stands yet. It is very odd that all the opposers of Christianity, from 
Celsus down, have not been able to uproot what those obscure men 
planted. When you cast suspicion upon the honesty of those disciples 
I suppose you hardly mean what you say, because this is another point 
long since conceded by unbelievers, " namely," that whatever else those 
disciples were, they were honest. They may have been mistaken, but 
they were incapable of wilful imposition. May I say that you have read 
your New Testament to very little purpose or advantage if you still 
suspect the writers of it of fraud? 

As to your membership in a church for thirty years, your letter gives 
evidence that however honest you may have supposed yourself to be in 
making the Christian profession, you never knew Christ, as the very 
life of your soul, your profession was an unreal one ; you professed what 
you did not possess. If you will read Acts 26-29, y or * wm see now a 
man talks who for twenty-five years has had within him the divine life 
which Christ imparts. You speak of your age. My father is an older 
man than you. For fifty years he has served Christ. He has been 
a blessing to thousands of people, both as regards their temporal and 
spiritual welfare. To-day he is loved a.nd honored by the people of 
several counties in Ontario. His heart is as cheery and hopeful as a 
boy's. His character is unselfish, pure, Christlike. One of these days 
he will leave this world as happy as a man leaves his work at 6 o'clock 
to go home. Can you give a better showing than my old father? How 
many lives have you blessed? How many human hearts have you 
cheered? How many hundreds love and honor you to-day? How 
cheerful will you be when you die? 

As to your remarks about missionaries I could say much, for I 
happen to know a large number of them, and what they are doing, and 
I have not taken my information second-hand from men who have no 
sympathy with them and their work. You suggest that it is possible for 
me to continue preaching when I no longer believe, though you hardly 
think I will. Well, I do not think I will, but do not judge all professed 



The Problem of Unbelief. 41 

Christians by your own unhappy experience. You professed to be a 
Christian for thirty years, and then found out that your profession was 
all a delusion. Now, there are some whose profession is not a delusion, 
and I think that I am one of them. But depend upon it, the day I cease 
to believe in Christ as the world's Savior, that day I shall cease preaching. 
I think if I am put to it Icould earn my bread and butter some other way. 
My dear friend, your letter reveals a discontented state of mind. It 
reveals a feeling of spite against Christ, against His apostles, against 
Christian missionaries, against Christianity. You are not at peace in 
your own mind, you are not at peace with God. That very. Christ about 
whom you so write, is the source of peace and hope and redemption. 

Now I have written plainly, also just as you did. I was not 
annoyed by your letter, I hope you will not be by mine. I have not 
said - tenth of what I had to say. I have acquainted myself with all 
the objections to Christianity from the day of Celsus in the second cen- 
tury, down to this year, 1892, and I still believe in Christ as my 
Redeemer and my Divine Master. 

Sincerely yours, 
P. S. As it regards the conflict between faith and unbelief to-day, it 
stands thus: 1st. All concede that Jesus lived. 2nd. All concede that 
the disciples of Jesus were honest men. 3rd. The problem of unbelief 
is on this basis. To explain the belief in supernatural Christianity, the 
existence of the New Testament, the origin of the Christian Church. 

December 3, 1892. 
My Dear Sir. There has been an unfortunate confusion in the 
regular order of our correspondence that requires correction, so I will 
resume the regular order and answer first yours of the 29th, sent first, 
and close with the one that came to me later. I feel guilty, but not 
intentionally of causing you to write so long a letter under a partial mis- 
apprehension of what questions precisely I required you to answer. 
On looking over a rough draft of my last, I perceived there seems to 
be some ambiguity or failure to put the questions about which I 
desired information, or an answer into a distinct proper form and con- 
sequently what you have written with such light as you could get from 
my somewhat indefinite language, fails entirely to touch the real merits 
of this subject, and I apologize for causing you to waste so much of 
your valuable time to no good purpose. You will agree with me when 
I assert that no subject about which no doubt is admissible is of equal 
importance to the one concerning the destiny of universal humanity at 
the close of its earthly career. The Christian religion more than any 
other professes to disclose and settle that question by or through the 
atoning sacrifice of a mediator, or savior, which mediator is Jesus 



42 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Christ of Nazareth. The necessity for this atonement or salvation was 
to restore the universal fallen nature of the human race by reason of its 
transmitted defilement by or through the sin of Adam. Without attempt- 
ing to elaborate further the plan of salvation, which you understand, 
perhaps better than I do, it must be assumed, for it could never be 
proved that a savior was required adequate to an assumed emergency; 
hence a mere man would not be sufficient. This also is an assumption, 
and, therefore, it was assumed by the authors of this imposition, that a 
supernatural being, or one part God and one part man was 
required adequate to meet the emergency only assumed, mind 
you. Hence, if it can, by the intricate process of theology be 
established that Jesus of Nazareth, as he is set forth in the gospels, is 
real and not fictitious, that is what I wish you to prove from history, 
other than the gospels, so plain that a jury of .impartial men will give 
you an affirmative verdict. Is this plain enough for you to compre- 
hend it? 

It is not sufficient to establish that any false Christ lived in the time 
of Herod and Pilate, but he must be genuine, both human and divine, 
or he is worthless as a savior or redeemer, and you know that as well 
as I do. I am surprised and astonished that any man of your intelli- 
gence and presumed candor, should/ refer me to such authority as 
Josephus, when you must know that all scholars have long since con- 
ceded that his reference to a man, if it be lawful to call him man, etc., is 
a base Christian forgery, perpetrated by those who translated his his- 
tory from the Greek, in which language it was written, to make it sale- 
able in Christian lands, and admitting it to be genuine, it would only 
faintly hint that a mere man lived there and then, and so the reference 
only weakens the argument. You ought, therefore, to be ashamed to 
try to thus impose on one, who am not your equal, at least not in 
scholarship. Your reference to Tacitus is still more unworthy of notice, 
for you and I both know that he lived and wrote before Christ was born, 
admitting he was ever born, for he died at the age of 78 in A. D. 17. 
Therefore the same charge of forgery is made and his reference only 
weakens the case, and this forgery was perpetrated for the same reason, 
and you either do or ought to know this to be so, for I know it with less 
than half the intelligence, I concede to you, so that this is a fair sample 
of ministerial candor and honesty. 

With regard to Homer, you, as well as I, know that his identity 
or reality is by many able scholars disputed, therefore it is not 
of any pertinence or value as an illustration, and for aught you or I 
know, the Iliad and Odyssey may be the product of some other person. 
Then you refer to Socrates and you know that I never disputed that he 



Voltaire Could Find No Proof in Rome. 43 

was born in Athens, in April, 469 B. C, of poor parents, and that he 
emerged from barbaric sophistry into a religion every way as pure as 
the Christian in its moral precepts, and his life and death in its tragical 
features was equal to that of Jesus Christ 500 years later. Admitting 
he died at all, and he only pretended to concern himself with this life 
and human welfare, and it is only fanaticism that causes any person to 
do otherwise. 

Shakespeare is also in controversy, and future generations will find 
the same uncertainty about him that is now found about Homer. But 
all this reference of yours is mere speculation, intended to deceive me, 
and has no reference or value as illustrating the reality of the savior 
and redeemer of the lost souls of all humanity for whether they lived or 
not they never aspired to anything more good or beneficent than the 
welfare of man in the present life, and therefore, if it be conceded that 
a Christ has lived, it is yet to be proved that the Christ of the gospels, 
also has lived, and was crucified, otherwise the religion founded on that 
mere assumption, and not on a fact, is a sham and a fraud. This then 
is my question, repeated, and is, if possible, a little more definite: Is 
there in the official documents or records on file in the libraries 
of the Roman government, as it existed in the days when Pilate and 
Herod were governors or magistrates in Judea, and record concerning 
the administration of these two men, any sentence that in the most dis- 
tant manner alludes to the advent, the life of 30 years or more, the won- 
derful miracles, the teachings, the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, or 
the resurrection of one Jesus Christ, who was the son of the Virgin 
Mary, born in Bethlehem, and I will add, can such an account be found 
anywhere on earth but in the four gospels of the new testament? 

The best authority that Europe has ever produced, Voltaire, in his 
philosophical dictionary, says there is not, for he has himself been there 
and made the most diligent search with that object in view, and while 
he succeeded in finding abundant reports that these governors made 
to the home governmenfof the details of their manner of administering 
their official duties, with which they were entrusted, not one word can 
anywhere be found that either Herod or Pilate ever knew of any such a 
remarkable person being born in Bethlehem; and Herod's ordering the 
slaughter of all male infants to make it certain that the one who was 
destined to be a rival to the Roman authority might not live, or any 
trial being had by either himself, or Pilate, or any one who the Jews 
wished them to crucify. I am aware that such a bigoted Christian min- 
ister as you are will consider Voltaire very poor authority to rely on, to 
prove any important question about Christ. Is he not at least as good 
as those you quote, Strauss, Renan, Mill, to prove your side when you 
class them all as unbelievers. 



44 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Voltaire died a Roman Catholic, and was a greater man than all these 
others combined in one. You pretend to doubt my sincerity or honesty 
in raising this question. I also doubt your honesty when you deny that 
you seek to evade giving an answer under the miserable pretence that 
my question is no more than a mere suggestion of mine, or that it does 
not amount to a question. I assure you that as I am the first one, as 
far as I am aware, who has raised this question in this age, I intend 
to persist in requiring from Christian ministersi and theologians a def- 
inite affirmative answer or a confession that none is possible, for these 
unfounded assertions and assumptions of you ministers have been 
received and believed long enough. 

I agree with John Stuart Mill in his estimate of the value of a pure, 
moral character, but I deny that the gospels portray such a character 
in Jesus Christ when separated from divinity and transferred to -his 
humanity. On the contrary, I can point out several serious blemishes 
that detract from perfection, and his statement, that no one lived near, 
that time, capable of delineating such a character is manifest or rather 
it is manfest that those who have attempted it in these gospels have 
failed to produce it. You ask, Where do you expect to find accounts of 
Jesus? I answer, everywhere, in all the 1 literature within the scope of 
the Roman empire, as it existed in the beginning of this era. So 
stupendous an individual's career as the gospels delineate as belonging 
to Jesus of Nazareth, would inevitably attract the notice of every writer 
of history for many centuries, and the already exaggerated details 
would be still more incredibly exaggerated and impossible than these 
gospel writers have made this god man appear to have been, for no 
such an event ever escapes the notice and scrutiny of the historian, for 
in fact they are always greedy to seize upon and magnify such a 
miraculo*us event, and, it therefore would have been impossible to keep 
private to two or even four unknown, obscure writers, so great an event 
as the advent, the miracles, the life and the tragic death of such an 
innocent, inoffensive hero. 

Poets would never cease to endeavor to excel each other, to immor- 
talize their memory by constructing the most sublime epics on a theme 
so much more capable of yielding the requisite inspiration, than any 
other within the compass of human history, that even Paradise Lost and 
Regained, would be too insignicant to be worthy of mention. 

When you ask me how came so many Christians in Rome in the 
time of Nero, and everywhere in all the provinces of the empire, and 
quote the historian Tacitus as proof, you forget that Tacitus, the his- 
torian, had been dead more than fifty years when Nero was emperor of 
Rome, so this fact is a further proof that your quotation from him is a 



Why An Imposition Is So Hard to Kill. 45 

forgery, for dead men never write history, but they are in some cases 
the subjects of history, but perhaps you thought you could impose upon 
my supposed ignorance of that fact. I would have been glad to have 
seen the quotation from the letter of Pliny, which you refer to, for I 
doubt not it is also a mere invention or guess of yours, but as Pliny, the 
younger,was a literary man, and died 1 15 A. D., I presume he might find 
a few Christians by that time, for all not pagans were called Christians. 
But the Elder Pliny was an Agnostic and a Naturalist, therefore not 
likely to be a historian, so I have not got to account for the presence of 
numerous Christians in the Roman empire in the first century, for they 
were not there in any numbers worth estimating. I would be most 
willing and ready to discuss this missionary question with you if you 
wish it at some other time, but as it is not a part of this controversy, it 
had best be omitted at present at least. 

You next engage in a personal matter about yourself. That I as 
much as admitted you would not in any emergency continue to be 
enough of a hypocrite to preach after you had ceased to regard Christ 
as the hope of humanity. You retort savagely, " Do you judge all pro- 
fessed Christians by your own unhappy experience, when after profes- 
sing Christ 30 years, and then found out your profession was a delu- 
sion?" How do you, more than I, conclude that there are. some whose 
profession is not a delusion, and then except yourself by saying, " I 
think I am not deceived." Why did you not say I know I am not 
under a delusion? For the reason that you do not know, but only hope 
you are not. I know you are, and I hope you will discover it yourself, 
and quit preaching, and earn an honest living in some other and more 
respectable calling, than to continue to uphold an imposition and fraud, 
which, but for such as you ministers would soon wholly disappear as 
soon as the financial aid was withheld, that now is all the inducement 
any student has to engage in that disreputable calling. You sneer. 
You allude to me as charging the writers of the gospels with being 
obscure and ignorant also dishonest, but you dare not, and do not deny 
it is a true charge, but boast impudently of the permanence of their 
work. Have I not just given the only reason why it is permanent? I 
will give it again. Because there is money it, and every imposition in 
all time the world over, thrives on money alone. 

Do I not know what I say when I suspect the writers of the gospels 
with intentional dishonesty and fraud? I know well, and it is no miti- 
gation of that suspicion, because you say " it is long since conceded by 
unbelievers, that whether they were ignorant and deceived, they were 
at least honest." That is not so conceded by me, or any other skeptic. 
You next charge me with an unprofitable reading of the new testament 



46 The Skeptic's Defense. 

I assure you I have read it as attentively and as faithfully, and as much 
as you have, ajid the more I read it, especially in the last revision, and 
compare the deviations in the text and references to marginal readings, 
the more deep and abiding is my individual conviction, that it is only 
a willful or intentional fraud. You next charge me with having been 
deceived when I professed to be a Christian, but you admit I might 
have been honest, as every fool is, and then you jump to the conclusion 
that I never knew Christ as the life of my soul. Doubtless you thus 
conclude, because I did not join a Baptist Church, and submit to bap- 
tism by immersion, and wind up the sentence by saying, and to give it 
force, underscoring it like this : " You have professed what you did not 
possess." 'This is a specimen of your theology, referring to my expe- 
rience, you got religion when you didn't know it, for if you knew it, 
you never had it, and if you had it, you could not lose it, and if you 
lose it, you never had it. How came you to first be a believer, and then 
a Baptist, and finally a Baptist minister. I will give a true answer to 
my question. You had Baptist parents, and was a Baptist in spite of 
yourself, when you was born. You then was reared a Baptist, and at 
a full age was baptized by a Baptist, then educated a Baptist, then 
ordained a Baptist minister, and by this round about process you now 
think you are also a Christian. You are in name, and I was in name, 
by just such a process, up to the point of education, and there the par- 
allel ends, for I never had any worth mentioning, and let me warn you, 
that you are no more safe from apostacy than I was at your age and 
experience, or than that fictitious, imaginary character brought on the 
stage in the 9th chapter of Acts, before he, St. Paul, by name, aposta- 
tized from the faith of both his own, and his ancestors, for no other rea- 
son than because his tutor and instructor, Gamaliel, refused his daughter 
to him in marriage, and to whom you refer me with so much confidence 
in Acts 26-29, and give that silly unmeaning verse as a specimen of 
how a man ought to feel and express himself, after he had for twenty- 
five years had within him the divine life which Christ imparts. That 
verse in the revised testaments read as follows, being the concluding 
sentence of his defence before Agrippa, and a large audience of pagan 
believers: " And Paul said I would to God that whether with little or 
with much, not thou only, (Agrippa) but also all that hear me this 
day, might become such as I am, except these bonds." This means, if 
it means anything, that Paul wished Agrippa to apostatize and turn 
traitor to his religious convictions, as he had done, for no reason, and 
also that all that assembly would turn traitors without any good reason, 
but he warned them, in doing so, not to be as headstrong and rash as he 
had been, and so escape persecution. If that is how a man feels or how 



A Sharp Reproof Where Well Deserved. 47 

you feel after twenty-five years Christian experience, the Lord help you 
and deliver me. 

Peter, and all of them, who pretended to have received the Holy 
Ghost on the day of pentecost, refused to fellowship Paul, for the rea- 
son, that he had once apostatized, and very likely he would do so again, 
when his enthusiasm should subside, so they let him wander away alone 
into remote regions, and there thrive or sink, as best he could. So 
much for your modelman. 

When I alluded to my age, incidentally, it was for the purpose of 
excusing myself from complying with your desire to have the pleasure 
of meeting me, for a more intimate acquaintance, at your home, and 
not for the purpose of instituting a comparison with your father, for I 
never heard that you had one, till I read your eulogy ; but inasmuch as 
you have, without any cause, as I can see, needlessly dragged him 
before me, and endeavored to impress me with his superiority over me, 
by his greater age and his extensive usefulness, I will say that a proper 
sense of modesty in you would have caused you to refrain from eulo- 
gizing your own father to one, who neither knew or cared whether you 
had a father, or having one, whether he was vicious or virtuous, tyrani- 
ca! or mild, miserable or happy, but now that he has thus been intro- 
duced to my notice by a son who is liable, on that account, to over- 
estimate his importance, I will modestly say, that whatever he is morally 
I am his equal, and although my sphere of usefulness has not been on the 
same lines, or on as extensive a> field, for he is a life-long missionary 
to Indians, and making large allowance for your enthusiasm, I can, 
without boasting, show as good results as any one with my opportuni- 
ties, but both your father and yourself would be immediately isolated 
and anathematized if you should deviate one iota from the most slavish 
subjection to Baptist doctrines or discipline, and you know not how he 
will end his days, or when ended, what will be either his destiny or 
your own, and I can assure you that as much faith and hope as you 
both have, I would not take either of your chances, and give you mine 
in exchange for this world alone, to say nothing about another, for I 
consider that the average close communion Baptist has not got a soul 
of sufficient size to be worth saving. 

You manifest, in these six questions you ask me about my individual 
prospects, a contempt and spite characteristic of all Baptists, for they, 
none of them, ever have a generous and manly impulse, and send every- 
body to the devil, who refused to be soused bodily into a tank of tepid 
water. Now, you in conclusion of your long letter in which you say 
you have not expended one-tenth of the abuse you feel, probably 
because I have put you into a hole from which you cannot extricate 



48 The Skeptic's Defense. 

yourself, and now that you have inadvertently no doubt revealed your- 
self to me, to my satisfaction, to have the character of a sham, contempt- 
ible hypocrite, notwithstanding your pretended snivelling attachment, 
to a false or imaginary Christ, about whom you know nothing, under a 
superstitious impression that a large amount of false instruction has 
regenerated your little, worthless soul, and filled it with a sickening rev- 
erence for a Christ, who never did or never will live. 

Now, I have written plainly just as you did, but I trust, not without 
showing a proper indignation at your insulting allusion to my want of 
reverence for your imaginary Christ, which I do not believe is any- 
thing but a myth or fraud and imposition, and I am abundantly able to 
understand and comprehend the scope of your pretended solicitude for 
my spiritual condition, and your object in asking these six insulting ques- 
tions, at th?e close of /your valedictory or final leave taking of me,and I can 
also plainly see that you consider your labor with me to have been in vain, 
for I have the long end of the rope, of which you have only the short 
end, and when my book is published of which a thousand pages of 
manuscript is already written, an expose will be made of Christianity, 
by one who knows what it is, from actual experience, that will be both 
unique and astounding, that will find a ready sale among all grades 
and kinds of skeptics, and all irreligious persons, who have long been 
waiting for some one to enter the lists against this monstrous organiza- 
tion, that has possession, undisputed, of a position, which by long pos- 
session and perfect organization, they regard as unassailable. What- 
ever you may be as a Baptist,or even as a religious man, it is certain from 
the high esteem which your fulsome eulogy of your father discloses, you 
possess towards him, it is certain that you are not a Christian, according 
to an authority, even you cannot dispute. 

If you will refer to Luke 14, 26, you will find a receipe which con- 
tains the necessary ingredients of which to make a genuine Christian, 
and to save your time to look it up, I will quote it from the revised ver- 
sion : " If any man cometh unto me and hateth not his own father and 
mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his 
own life also, he cannot be my disciple." These ingredients are the 
invention of the Christ of the gospels, and the credit of this discovery 
belongs to him alone, and no one therefore has a claim to be consid- 
ered or to consider himself to be a Christian who does not swallow 
whole this prescription. Therefore, I say you are only a Baptist min- 
ister, for you evidently do not hate your father, and may be not your 
wife and children, but I am not sure of that, for you have not told me 
about them and the impudent snubs that Christ often gave his mother 
fully establishes the fact that he hated her. In the 2nd John 4th verse 



Poor Acquaintance With Objectors. 49 

is one of these snubs, which is a very saucy retort for a son to give his 
mother in a public, mixed company. She only gently reminded him 
that the wine was all consumed, and he turned and told her in sub- 
stance "to shut your mouth and mind your own business," and he always 
ignored his brothers, and incurred the undying hate of all the Jews by 
reason of his abusive language to them, every time he was given the 
privilege to speak in their synagogues, calling them whited sepulchres, 
serpents, vipers, devourers of widows' houses, and other vile abuse as 
low and mean as he could invent, showing a vile temper and a vindica- 
tive disposition. 

You say further that you have acquainted yourself with all the 
objectors to Christianity, from Celsus, in the second century, down to 
1892. The identity or the reality of Celsus is disputed the same as in 
the case with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the time, and place, 
when he or they, wrote is still more uncertain, if it is admitted they 
ever wrote, but what was written by some objector is as much beyond 
your power to either comprehend or refute, with the bigoted conception 
and narrow dwarf intellect with which theology always curses its vic- 
tims, as it would be for a man to create a universe. Acquainted your- 
self indeed? Why as smart a man as the Eunuch Origen, who was 
employed for that purpose to refute Celsus, could no more refute Celsus, 
or whoever it was, than I could, and you can't refute even me. You 
show very poor acquaintance with history in your references, and a 
brazen conceit about your own abilities, but you seem to have great 
comfort in your divine, imaginary master and redeemer. I hope what 
I have written will not disturb that comfort, but I fear it will. In your 
postcript, or after thought, in your long letter, in which letter you say 
that, long as it is, you have not said one-tenth of what you want to say, 
and which I am sorry you did not say, to ease your mind, you make the 
following points which I will briefly notice : 

1st. All concede that Jesus lived. If you mean Jesus of Nazareth, I 
do not, neither does any skeptic. You do and so do your gang, there- 
fore all do or must. 2nd. All concede that the disciples of Jesus were 
honest men. If you mean simply the twelve who were constantly with 
him, I consider them, by the description of the gospel writers, that they 
were so many fools to leave their own homes and families for the sake 
of wandering about the country without any occupation or income like 
so many mere tramps, and whatever the rest were as to honesty, Judas 
was surely not regarded) by his master or associates as a very honest 
man, and the whole thirteen robust, able-bodied men either stole their 
food and clothes for some three years, more or less, or begged it, for 
they never earned a dollar or were worth a dollar, only mere paupers. 



50 The Skeptic's Defense. 

3rd. The problem of unbelief is on this basis. 1st. To explain the 
belief in supernatural Christianity. The belief iu that had its origin in 
the invention of the system itself, by or through a union of Judaism and 
paganism, with the declared intention and design to ultimately super- 
cede and destroy Judaism, and establish Christianity on its ruins, which 
desien has so far ridiculously miscarried. 2nd. The existence of the 
new testament. The question is very ambiguous or obscure. Do you 
mean to ask how it has survived when it was a deception only up to 
this time, or do you mean how it came into being? I will explain both 
of these propositions, and so shall set the whole matter right. It came 
into being by the same process that all fiction comes into being. It is 
the invention and a very imperfect and clumsy one of a conceited set of 
both Jew and pagan fanatics or enthusiasts, who perceived at one 
period in history that Roman, civil and military authority, would inev- 
itably destroy Judaism and supercede it by paganism, unless these fan- 
atics could by combining the two isystems by mutual concessions, unite 
and defeat such an anticipated result or consummation by creating or 
inventing a new mongrel form of imposition and deception, which these 
first inventors in after times agreed to give the name of Christianity, 
and hold to, and did invent the Christ of the new testament, which is 
another edition of the Christna of the pagans by omitting the two 
final letters, and he was put on the stage, and had the same miraculous 
nature as Christna of the pagans had, but came of Jewish stock, on the 
mother's side, and from divine source on the supernatural or pagan 
side, as Christna also did. The crop of ambitious writers was so 
abundant among these two sets of fanatics, that by admitting the whole 
of them to be divinely inspired too large a volume would, be required, 
so after about the first half of the third century a council of these repre- 
sentative or head men, both Jews and pagans, was held in the city of 
Laodicea, to select such writings, by debate and ballot, which might 
be authorized as proper to read in the Christian assemblies, and reject 
by a majority vote such as were uninspired. A second council later- 
admitted the epistle of James, second Peter, second and third John, and 
Revelations, which the former had rejected and denounced in the last 
verses of Revelations a fearful woe or penalty on any further addition or 
subtraction. This is the way the new testament came into its existence. 
The way it has survived and will continue to survive, is the same way 
that all impositions survive for the discovery was early made that there 
is a mine of wealth to be dissipated into many millions of streams of 
revenue, to discharge into first, the treasury of the hierarchy, and in 
turn, into the capacious greedy pockets of the priests of various grades, 
who have a direct interest to make this golden stream constant, large 



The Germ From Which Christianity Grew. 51 

and perpetual. This is the explanation of the origin of the new testa- 
ment. 3rd. The origin of the Christian Church. The writer of Acts of 
the Apostles, whoever it was, invented a ridiculous performance at 
Jerusalem, on one of the days of the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which 
performance of electrical legerdemain was called the descent of the Holy 
Ghost. 

This electrical or magnetic humbug was a pre-arranged contrivance 
of some Egyptian or Chinese juggler, and had for its main object, to 
make money, and also to astonish and impress a gaping crowd of ignor- 
ant Jewish boobies, who had come from distant regions to celebrate this 
annual feast, and this performance was the germ from which both 
Christianity and the Christian church grew, and steadily increased, till 
Constantine, the great Roman emperor, who afterwards became the 
first Pope, got converted by a vision or pretence that he had seen the 
cross on which Christ was crucified in the clouds in the day time, but 
it is far more likely he had a fit of delirium tremens, and he then, unop- 
posed constituted himself the head of the church, and gathered the con- 
tending factions of Jews and pagans, and harmonized them by force, 
into what finally has developed the monstrosity, called, or miscalled, 
the Christian church, such as it is, for it is only a hybrid, unworthy of a 
name. I hope I have answered your impudent letter as it deserves. 
If I have not, if you will point out my deficiencies, I will do so later. 
If you considered my former letter revealed a spite to Christ, to his 
apostles, to Christian missionaries, what do you think of this letter. 

I am indifferent to what you either think or say. I am your equal 
and the equal of your wonderful father, in natural, mental capacity and 
ability to resent an insult. I have now endeavored, in compliance with 
your wish, expressed in your last letter, of the 29th of November, to 
give a definite form to my question ; also, I have told the attitude of my 
own mind towards it as plainly, but not as fully as I am able. I am 
aware that you will consider some of this letter rather ungentlemanly, ii 
not abusive, but I really felt indignant when I read the personal part 01 
your letter, for it was both uncalled for and insulting for you to parade 
the perfections of your father before me, and then by comparison, 
allude to what you are pleased to consider my deficiencies, and there- 
fore I feel I am justified in showing a proper dignity by resenting it as I 
have done. In your reference to your venerable father, you recite how 
much good he has done, how many he has assisted, temporally and 
spiritually, how many counties in the province of Ontario love and 
honor him, and close your eulogy in these words : " One of these days 
he will leave this world as happy as a man leaves his work at 6 o'clock, 
to go to his home." What an absurd comparison. Do all men go 



52 The Skeptic's Defense. 

home happy? (You know they do not, and neither your father or your- 
self will die any happier than I will. You then ask, " Can you give as 
good a showing, or better one than my old father?" "How many 
lives have you blessed? How many human hearts have you cheered? 
How many hundreds love you and honor you, How happy will you 
be when you die?" I will simply say in reply to these impudent ques- 
tions, all this is none of your business, therefore, I consider I am jus- 
tified in expressing a feeling of resentment and contempt for your wilful 
and intentional insult, and no apology will be made, and no answer to 
this letter is either expected or desired. 

The above correspondence is a fair sample, as to length, as to argu- 
ment, and other matters concerning the same question which I have 
had with four other of the most orthodox Christian ministers in Roches- 
ter, with the same result. 

This transaction, as a whole, is involved in so many great improb- 
abilities that those who are wholly destitute of superstition, or those 
who do not take or accept the Bible as inspiration or divine revelation, 
cannot find sufficient evidence upon which to found even a weak belief, 
to say nothing about certainty, it therefore seems to them more prob- 
able that those who invented the miracles of Christ, also invented this 
story of his crucifixion, and therefore that the whole improbable story, 
is mere fiction of some deluded and fanatical persons, of a long subse- 
quent age, after the time of Pilate and Herod, and was located in that 
period, because that was the very last moment when secular history 
would allow the Jews to have had a national, though subject existence, 
in Palestine or Judea; and as all religions have required, and had a 
dead hero, who died a dramatic or violent death, as much as impossible 
miracles, and both could be invented in a subsequent age, and placed by 
the inventor, or impostor, far enough in the past to make verification 
impossible, and the imposture successful, by the placing those startling 
extremes of goodness and badness, and keeping them in constant con- 
tact through the whole of this invented transaction, and the crowding 
of so many dramatic incidents in so short a space, covering at most, 
only three years, and some good authorities say only one year, shows 
the work of a master of fictitious composition. The betrayal of such a 
good Jesus, by such a bad Judas, with the most affectionate salutation 
of, " hail master," and the hypocritical kiss, the forsaking him by all his 
other trusted disciples, the denial by Peter after such a strong promise to 
stick by him to the last, the corruption and illegal proceeding of all the 
judges, the perjury of all the witnesses, the treachery and maladminis- 
tration of Pilate and Herod, the choice by the people of Barabbas, a 
robber, to be set at liberty, to repeat his robberies, in preference to 



The Numerous Tragic Scenes Described. 53 

Jesus, the insane fury of a mob, and the unparalleled cruelty and bru- 
tality of the Roman soldiers to such a meek and tender nature as 
Christ's was, in and through this whole tragic scene, the placing the 
spotless, innocent Jesus between two thieves, the plea of one dying thief 
for remembrance, and the profane jeering of the other, and finally, the 
piteous cries of agony, mingled with a prayer to his father, for his cruci- 
fiers, constitute together the greatest number of dramatic or tragic situ- 
ations, found before that time in either history, or, fiction, and has not 
yet been exceeded, and such a combination as could not have actually 
occurred, and the writer or inventor of these dramatic incidents was not 
himself able to delineate them, so, that they even seem real, but are con- 
tradictory, for want of ability of the writer to invent a consistent story, 
having so many situations, not understood by this writer, being so far 
removed in point of time, about three hundred years, and also being so 
remote from the locality, and depending almost or quite wholly on unre- 
liable tradition, for important facts, to make such an attempt successful, 
but, to a credulous and ignorant people sufficient, to partially satisfy 
some of them, who, after much contention and mutual concessions, 
have or did in time result in founding, and establishing a new religion, 
being a compromise between paganism and Judaism, and an agree- 
ment after much dispute and a long period of undecided contention, 
about a suitable name, to call it, Christianity, and accept of the ficti- 
tious, or imaginary Christ, which these writers portrayed as its founda- 
tion. The darkness of the sun for three hours, beginning at midday, 
and the local earthquake that woke the dead and restored them to their 
former friends, thus nullifying the effects of many years of decomposi- 
tion, completed this wonderful scene, and the resurrection of this cru- 
cified Christ was so private, no one ever has been able to tell precisely 
when it occurred, but these gospels all agree that one night, and one 
day, and a part of the next night, completed the time of absence of 
life, instead of three days and three nights, which he had before 
assigned as the period he was to remain dead, because Jonah was that 
long in the whale's belly, thus giving his sanction to that miserable lie. 
The resurrection of the body, is the only peculiarity or new feature 
about Christianity that is confessedly original. All other of its doc- 
trines and absurdities, are either copies of some form of Judaism or of 
Paganism, mixed with the Jewish form, for its founder, Christ, if he 
every lived at all, was a Jew, and its first disciples were all Jews, and 
Jews were the only people on earth, this Jewish founder ever intended 
to have any share in his salvation, for he himself forbade those who 
he sent out, to even enter any city of the Gentiles, and also he always 
refused his personal help to any but Jews, and said repeatedly, that he 



54 The Skeptic's Defense. 

was only sent to find the lost sheep belonging to the house of Israel, 
but notwithstanding these precautions the Jews, to a man refused to 
tolerate either him or his twelve associates, and utterly rejected him, 
so, the apostles had to turn to the Gentiles, although in his time he 
considered them beneath his notice, and intimated to a Gentile woman 
who applied to him for help, he considered them only as so many 
dogs and his disciples were forbidden to heal any of them who 
came to them for that purpose, or even to try to instruct them in the end 
to prevent this new imposition from entirely collapsing and disappear- 
ing the Gentiles were welcomed. These cunning first impostors, 
such as Peter and his associates, and later Paul and his associates, were 
forced to compromise and proclaim broadly, and loudly, in every place 
where they could get a hearing, Whosoever will let him come ; if he has 
an)^ money, particularly, and partake of the water of life freely, as to 
quantity, provided he can freely pay for it the price demanded, 
which in most cases is his whole fortune, for there is no class of blood 
suckers who are so greedy as the Christian priests, stimulated as they 
always are by their ecclesiastical superiors, the Popes and various 
grades of bishops, and there is no source so prolific of religious theories, 
and so ingenious to invent plausible and cunning arguments, to uphold 
their abominable and impossible assumptions, and when some destin- 
guished leader, on account of his superior energy or ability,demonstrates 
by the exercise of such energy, that he is thus endowed, he then receives 
their sanction and support, until his untenable new and strange inven- 
tions become so far advanced as to be acquiesced in by inferior or sub- 
ordinate grades of theologians, who, in a general council adopt them, 
after discussing them sufficient to produce conviction, and then compel 
their dupes, who look to them for salvation, both here and hereafter, to 
also adopt them, on their simple recommendation, without giving them 
any reason or alternative, but require a universal acquiescence to such 
monstrous untruthful doctrines and absurdities, as every creed in 
Christendom is composed of, as for example the Apostles creed, used 
by all Episcopalians which recites," I believe in God, the Father, who is 
almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his son, who was conceived of the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, etc.," and no minister who is com- 
pelled by these tyranical leaders to first acquire, in addition to the high- 
est academical course of instruction, to also go through a college course 
of mental discipline of four collegiate years, and get their indorsement 
or diploma containing the autograph signatures of all its faculty or 
board of professors, to prove it to be genuine, and then go to some theo- 
logical seminary, under the control of the denomination, to which the 
applicant for admission has by this time become a member, and after 



The Intricate Process to Acquire Theology. 55 

passing examination by the faculty of such institution, to prove his relig- 
ious professions to be genuine, if it is satisfactory, but not otherwise, he 
is then compelled to pay for, and receive another four years course of 
theological training and instruction in their prescribed way or method, 
and if he is found worthy at the end of this course, and not otherwise, 
he gets their diploma or certificate, from that faculty, containing the 
autograph of the whole faculty, certifying that he is worthy to be trusted, 
and relied upon to uphold the creed to which he has given his sworn 
promise to always adhere, and thus endorsed and fortified, he is in a 
position to begin to prey upon some unsuspecting, innocent, and ignor- 
ant community, and by his acquirements, is so far above those to whom 
he is the spiritual guide and instructor, that no one is supoosed to be 
competent to question any statement he chooses to make, who, how- 
ever poor they may be, and scarcely able to carry such burdens, as 
every day's necessities compel them to carry, they are taught from their 
infancy to maturity, that religious instruction has more value than 
any or all other acquisitions, and is also indispensable, and so they 
resolutely resolve to add one more needless burden to their already 
overburdened and poor ability to furnish the means to employ and sup- 
port this greedy, hungry candidate, who comes with these indorsements 
which have caused his financial ruin, by wasting ten or more years, and 
a vast sum of money, to make him fit for a holy robber, which he simply 
is, and nothing more, for he must be paid a large salary annually, and 
give you nothing of any value in return, for none of these expensive 
preparations are necessary to enable any person to teach the highest 
grade of morality, which is all there is of any value in the preaching of 
any priest, in any form of religion, and this is the burden the infidel and 
every grade of skeptic, proposes to remove from society, by holding it 
up to ridicule, and demonstrating its utter worthlessness, and by taking 
away such foundations of mere mud or quicksand as that which we find 
recorded in the beginning of the book of Geneses, about the origin of 
man and woman. 

There never was a mature intellect of even a low grade, that could 
ever be made to believe any ;such story if he was to find it recorded in 
any other book than this so-called Holy Bible, but when children are 
instructed from the first dawn of their capacity to receive instruction, 
that the book in which this incredible story is written, and a great 
many others equally mysterious is recorded, is the inspired word ot 
God, and must be believed without hesitation, and this instruction is 
continued, and this false impression is made more firm by later Sunday- 
school instruction, and still later in the modern new discovery, called 
Christian Endeavor Societies, so firm a lodgment is in this manner 



56 The Skeptic's Defense. 

secured, that much contrary instruction is required, and much unan- 
swerable proof adduced, before any perceptible impression can be made 
to cause such person to begin the first doubt. This creation story is 
told in two directly contradictory ways in these' first accounts, so that 
it; is evident, that two writers or more wrote without divine assistance, 
but we will not now refer to more than two who wrote concerning man. 
At the end of the sixth day man appears, the noblest of earth's inhabi- 
tants, man alone, and not man and woman, and, after he had been placed 
in the garden of Eden, it was discovered there was a defect, for man 
alone could not increase, therefore woman must be created; and in the 
second chapter the order is changed, so that instead of man being cre- 
ated the last, he was the first in the order of creation, and then the 
creator, seeing his solitary condition, creates the beasts of the field, and 
the fowds of the air, and when brought to the protoplast, man, tHey were 
insufficient to supply his mental void, so that woman was made, to com- 
plete the machinery by which more human beings were produced; and 
that process is so repugnant to common sense, that it is one of the most 
stupendous wonders how it ever found a place in divinely inspired 
history. 

It is no wonder that theologians feared that this book, on which the 
rotten structure of orthodoxy is built, would be criticized, and thus cause 
the structure itself to fall into deserved and irretrievable ruin, and when 
these holy humbugs ask us what we propose to give as a substitute, we 
reply that those who destroy weeds and thistles are public benefactors, 
and whoever destroys a venomous reptile is not bound to put a harmless 
or beneficial one in its place, for it 1 is a public benefit to be rid of the 
reptile, and these are sufficient answers to satisfy us. But further, we 
ask in all candor, is the mere hope of heaven, to preserve and create 
which is considered of supreme value, worth any more to the one who 
has it to the end of his life, than it is worth to him, who, in a similar 
position is tormented by the fear of an endless hell of fire and brimstone, 
to be got rid of by our instruction? For we abolish both, by destroying 
the unfounded hope of heaven, and the damnable fear of hell, but the 
priest says hold on, for anarchy would be universal, the moment you 
remove the restraints of religious instruction from any people, they 
would lapse straightway into barbarism. We reply, if you eliminate 
morality from religion, it is that which gives it all the restraining force 
it has, and which is the basis on which alone we stand, and also that 
religion alone, never has rescued any people from barbarism, and so, 
if we abolish religion, or the usless worry about a future life, which is 
the only foundation for any form of religion, when it is separated from 
morality, the change, instead of being detrimental to the highest form 



The Folly of Any Worry About a Few Men. 57 

of civilization, would be only salutary and beneficial, and in place of the 
vast outlay that is constantly made to keep alive .superstitious reverence, 
for that on which such reverence is founded, which is not real, but only 
imaginary, you devote such enormous outlay to the acquirement of 
scientific knowledge, so much superiority in the condition of all grades 
of society would immediately be apparent, that so far would the people 
be from any tendency to go back to barbarism that, they would not 
even desire to return to their former condition, when science, was 
obliged to fight theology, inch by inch, in order to maintain such ground 
as they, by the most patient and persistent toil had rescued from blind 
ignorance and bigotry, without daring to attempt to explore new fields 
in the face of such formidable opposition, as the church, through its 
ecclesiastical authority was everywhere arrayed against them, would 
not be so much as proposed or even thought of. The insignificance to 
which scientific discovery, notwithstanding its opposition, by religious 
contemptible bigots, has reduced this little speck of dust, when com- 
pared to what science by its discoveries discloses to be in existence out- 
side of this speck we call the earth, on which we are so proud to dwell, 
and the system of which it forms only a small part, is such in the mind 
of the astronomer, that it is to him wonderful and astounding, why so 
much importance and solicitude is required, or supposed by theologians 
to be required, as to the destiny of its few inhabitants, who are not alto- 
gether a drop, when compared with what the whole of the universe con- 
tains, as to justify so much notice, and interference on the part of its 
imaginary creator, for no human intelligence has yet found a first cause, 
except an imaginary one, from whom creation has been derived, and 
there is not the faintest prospect that there ever will any nearer approach 
be had to a solution of this question in the future, for no progress has 
yet been made in such investigation, and universal humanity is yet 
involved in the same uncertainty, as it was when the inquiry first orig- 
inated; which was as soon as any being we call human, had enough 
mental ability to develope a capacity to as much as desire information, 
for at the first as now, his god was a mere imaginary fancy, just the 
same as that of the conception of the highest and most distinguished 
religious theologians, who all refuse to call nature god now is, and 
always will be as long as they adhere to that unfounded belief, and 
refuse to consider nature capable of producing, unassisted, all the 
results observed, and comprehended by the most able and highly 
endowed intelligence, which sciences when they are assisted by the 
powerful influences by which they always have been opposed, and are 
.now opposed, will be then able to demonstrate. 



58 - The Skeptic's Defense. 

It is not a fair presumption that this speck called earth, is a develop- 
ment of some small fragment of cast off, useless material, of some mag- 
nificent system, which was so imperceptible, when compared to that 
system as a whole, but which men are all apt, when they remain unin- 
structed to regard as the whole world, and the only world that exists, 
and which, small as it is, is itself beyond the feeble grasp of the clouded 
vision of the religious fanatic, whose insignicant intellectual capacity is 
rilled to overflowing with the one small idea of a future world called 
heaven, and a future life he calls eternity, all of which is wholly imagin- 
ary, a purely only worthless invention of gross superstition, utterly 
incomprehensible, unthinkable, and unreal; but it is on that very 
account, held forth by the priests as the supreme concern of all human- 
ity, and therefore needed a system such as the one as the Christianity of 
the past age invented and gave to the world, which revealed and dis- 
closed the world, to do which required the ignoring of all natural theo- 
ries, or discoveries, and substituting, and making conspicuously prom- 
inent, the supernatural, or in other words the superstitious and the mir- 
aculous. To the naturalist, or the materialist, there is not the slightest 
difficulty to account for the origin of all matter and mind, without 
referring anything to a supernatural god at all, for the earth on which 
we live being but a mere speck of created things, could have had the 
same origin as those which it has been derived from had, which was a 
development from a germ, by the operation of natural laws. 

There is no pretence by any theologian, that his imaginary god has 
any interest, or in fact had anything to do with creating anything but 
this earth, and its appurtenances, and as the sun, moon and stars are 
visible to the inhabitants on the earth, it is added in Genesis the words 
which are undoubtedly a forgery of the translators, " He made the stars 
also ; " but none of these were necessary, but were simply for ornament 
and light, but the scientist sees in them an indispensable relation or con- 
nection, without which the earth could never have existed, or contin- 
ued to exist, and he also sees that one form of life as much as another 
is directly dependent on the sun, so intimately that if it should cease 
to shine one moment, death would be universal, and therefore when 
he is required by the theologian, or the priest, to believe that the sun, 
and with it the system to which it is the regulator, at some ascertained, 
definite time and manner, was created out of nothing, by a mere w T ord 
or thought of a supernatural self-existent being, who, for want of a 
more expressive word is named god, he declines most respectfully to 
assent to any such impossible belief, and of course if he rejects that, he 
must also reject what follows in that untruthful narrative, concerning 
the temptation, the fall, the expulsion from Eden, and regard the nar- 



What Is Modern Criticism Able to Do. 59 

ratives of the Bible as so many fables or allegories, and the historical, as 
unimportant and unreliable, but the moral as salutary and beneficial, 
but neither new, or better than the world by mere instinct, without the 
teachings of any form of religion has always had. Criticism of any 
important subject, or even of any subject regarded as important by any 
respectable body of our fellow men, is not only just and proper, but is 
a duty, which the critic must fearlessly discharge. 

" Modern criticism has become so general, and so searching, that it 
is proper to inquire what it is, so as to decide as to its scope and 
candor, for it is simply deciphering a superstitious hieroglyphic, or 
unintelligible jargon, in so clear a manner as to defy contradiction. 
The belief in a revelation, or supernatural order of things, takes (if it is 
allowed to have its legitimate influence), its strongest weapon, for it is 
simply and only the remains of the first or original conception of the 
world, and the manner by which it came into being, which conception 
began at a time when man had not arrived at more than a very indistinct 
perception of the laws of nature. The naturalist, or materialist, is 
called upon to prove their impossibility, which he never can do, still, 
the whole of this conception is such as to be impossible in our days, how- 
ever reasonable it might have appeared to antiquity. The belief in the 
miraculous is the consequence of the ancients having considered the 
world to be governed by fantasy, instead of unchangeable laws; but the 
modern supernaturalist looks at is somewhat different. Science has 
so modified his views, and clarified his perceptions, that he dare not 
refuse to admit a stable or a permanent order of things in nature, so, 
he falls back upon the supposition, that the action of god may or must 
change now and then, not perceiving, however, that a changeable god 
is no god, and thus a miracle is a deviation from the established laws 
of nature; but it is to be noticed, that such was not the conception of 
primative man. The miracle in those days, such as the standing still of 
the sun and moon, and likewise those of the new testament, was not 
regarded as supernatural, for this idea only appears after the true ideas 
of the laws of nature have been clearly demonstrated, and was so far 
become self-evident to the supernaturalist, that he is compelled to rec- 
oncile the marvelous, with that which has been demonstrated by experi- 
ment and analysis, and formulated and expressed by abilities which he 
lias been compelled to admit, were superior to his own, and this slow 
and difficult process has delayed and hindered progress, so that these 
who clearly see that the supernatural must finally yield, are still too 
timid to admit the truth which they perceive, and so, still are disposed 
to adopt the marvelous improved theories, with that which experiment 
is able to and has over and over again clearly demonstrated. Such is 



60 The Skeptic's Defense. 

the tenacity, and the supposed obligation to maintain the error of the 
ancient bigoted fool of a theologian in his wild speculations and 
assumptions, that they only propose a half-hearted or insincere compro- 
mise, between the primative idea and the idea of experiment. 

The miracle confronted the primitive man at every step in life, and 
seemed to him perfectly natural, for, neither nature, nor its law. c were 
more than faintly, if at all, perceived by these simple souls. Such laws 
come on later, when the human intellects became more thoughtful and 
cultivated, also expanded so as to be able to comprehend, and finally to 
discover some of the most simple of these laws, for many of them yet 
remain, and always will remain, beyond the grasp of the best intellects, 
but yet enough is now positively known, to very effectually destroy the 
supernatural idea. The simplest minded savage, now admits the mir- 
acle without the slightest difficulty. It is not from one argument only, 
but from the whole aggregate when combined, that the scientist derives 
his conclusions, which are tremendous and irresistable, because the 
modern discoveries of science have disclosed them, and he therefore 
boldly asserts and proves this advanced proposition, and will maintain 
such discoveries against all comers, which proposition is in these words: 
There is not now, nor there never was such a thing or phantom as super- 
natural, either god or devil, but he does not say he can refute those 
who persist in believing that there is, by argument alone, for that is 
impossible, as before has been stated, for he will snap his fingers at 
every argument, just as a savage does when you strive to convince 
him of the absurdity of his fetichis, or his objects of adoration, which are 
really only so many fables or dreams. 

No process of converting a savage from his object of divine adora- 
tion, and get him to adopt a superior one, is of any use, for that only 
changes the object, but before any good impression can be made on 
him, you must civilize him, educate him, till he can climb the ladder up 
to your level, and that is always or chiefly done, by gradually cultivating 
social friendly feelings, and introducing commercial intercourse; and in 
like manner the orthodox supernaturalist is unassailable; no logical or 
metaphysical statement has the slightest effect on him. The only cure 
for supernaturalism, which to the unutterable disgrace of the highest 
civilization has not yet disappeared from humanity, is modern culture, 
which must be intensified and long continued, before the average intel- 
lect can be raised to the level of science, for all men, before they are 
able to grapple with science, must divest their intellectual faculties from 
every trace of superstition, bigotry, or fanaticism; and then by much 
culture and refinement, and with a special gift for some branch of scien- 
tic discovery, and sufficient perseverance and instruction, he finally 



Who Are the Skeptics and Who Believers. 61 

attains to celebrity, and so by such a process, without any struggle, or 
the need of any argument, all these superannuated superstitions, will, 
one by one, drop away. 

Since the beginning of existence, every event that has happened in 
the world of phenomena, has been but the regular and undeviating 
development of the laws relating to such phenomena, and which con- 
stitute one sole order that governs such phenomena: " Nature; " who- 
ever speaks of anything as being above or beyond nature in the order 
of facts, is just as guilty of contradiction, as he would be if he spoke of 
the super divine, a mere attempt to rise above the highest. Nature is 
simply human reason, to the exclusion of everything that savors of 
the whimsical, or in other words of the supernatural, and the task of the 
modern scientist will not be accomplished, till he has utterly and for- 
ever destroyed every vestige of the belief in the supernatural, in every 
conceivable shape, as he has long ago destroyed astrology, magic, and 
witchcraft. Supernaturalism includes all these, and much more like 
these, and posterity will look back upon those who are striving to abol- 
ish supernaturalism in our day, as we look upon those who fought 
against the belief in magic in the seventeenth century. What a miser- 
able set of humbugs and villains, the orthodox bigot and fanatic always 
was, and is. He taunts the scientist, and those who give heed to 
science, with being infidels, skeptics, atheists, and what not; when it is 
they who are the skeptics, and we the believers. We naturalists believe 
in the discoveries of modern science of these days, in' its value and its 
future utility, and you, curse it as well as refuse to believe in it. We 
believe in the reason, and you insult it,. We believe in humanity, in its 
capabilities, and in its future attainments. You orthodox fanatics and 
bigots, scorn it. We, atheists, infidels, and what not, believe in the 
innate goodness of man's nature, and the rectitude of his intentions as a 
whole, notwithstanding his lapses from virtue in the presence of strong 
temptation, on account of his ignorance and his inexperience, which, 
when acquired, will instruct and guide him aright, and also in his abil- 
ity, unassisted by any kind of religion, to attain to as perfect a state as 
his situation demands, and that will be reached much sooner, and more 
satisfactory to human welfare, without, than with, religion; for the 
mind of man cramped and circumscribed by the narrow bounds which 
any form of religion makes necessary and imperative, dwarfs all aspira- 
tions, and destroys all ability to investigate in any direction, and a fool- 
ish reverence for what has neither existence, or value, compels an 
acquiescence in any imposition, the unprincipled priesthood chooses to 
invent and prescribe. 



62 The Skeptic's Defense. 

You wretches, shake your heads at such pleasing truths, and lay all 
your stress on the inherent natural evil of human nature ,on the account 
of the allegorical .transactions, which scripture records as having 
occurred six thousand years before the present race was born, in a 
fictitious paradise; and if any of this sin-cursed race, manifest an aspira- 
tion towards an idealism, you rascals denounce such aspirations as the 
work of Satan, and you will talk any one blind who will listen to you, of 
rebellion, of sin, of punishment, of free salvation, by mere mock repent- 
ance, of expiation, whatever that may mean, of redemption, of atone- 
ment, vicarious and efficacious, of humiliation, of penitence, of the fierce 
executioner or hangman, figuratively of him or to him, who should hear 
no word from your unholy lips, but encouragement in striving for higher 
attainments in every kind of knowledge and virtue. We also believe in 
everything that is true, we love everything that is beautiful, and you, 
being wilfully blind to all these things, pass through this beautiful world 
of ours without as much as bestowing one smile upon it; and besides 
rave and howl continually in our ears about it, as if it was only a ceme- 
tery, and universal life only a funeral procession. Instead of the reality 
and beauty which we see, and greatfully admire, you cherish an abstrac- 
tion, and not only hug and embrace it yourself, but urge us also to do 
the same. 

Now, in view of all this true showing, which of us denies? You 
mere orthodox, bigoted, ignorant fanatics, or we, liberal minded, free 
and intelligent atheists, and infidels of all grades. And he who denies 
is not he the skeptic, instead of he who examines, investigates, and if 
convinced, admits? The most searching scrutiny into the theology of 
the Chinese, has failed to discover any idea of either a personal god or 
devil, or a future life, and no word in their language can be found, as 
even a name for the supernatural being called by Jews, Christians and 
others, God; but yet, it is a great mistake to say, as you Christians do, 
that they are a nation without either morality, religion, or god ; but yet 
the notorious fact remains, that they have no god, as we or you conceive 
him to be, and therefore the first Christian missionaries, had not only to 
invent a god for them, according to such missionaries' conception, but 
also invent a word, to add to their language, and no translation of the 
Christians' Bible into the Chinese language is possible, for such reasons, 
and any pretended translation which they assert in their lying missionary 
reports, is a dastardly fraud, the same as the rest of their lying state- 
ments of success in gaining converts from one false religion to another, 
still more false if that is possible. 

What is theology, as taught to all who aspire to get their living out 
of the humbug called the Christian religion? The priest must be 



The True Definition of Orthodoxy. 63 

instructed in theology of this variety, if it is anything at all, for it is noth- 
ing but a long drawn subtlety, a perpetual weapon, with which one who 
has it, hopes thereby to be able to defend the confessedly weak position 
of him, who has spent so much time and money to get, only a perpetual 
struggle to maintain an untenable position in religious imposture; for 
it is only that system which is not progressive that remains stationary. 
Can any being be any more motionless, than the numbskull nonentity 
who has never lived the life enlightened by intellectual culture, or of 
one who has never tried to see but one side of a disputed question? Such 
an one takes this ground ; I do not want to vary, therefore I must not 
think, or investigate. Orthodoxy feels safe and unassailable for the 
reason that it has placed itself outside of human nature and reason. For 
what is orthodoxy? is a proper inquiry; and when did it originate, and 
where? 

At Westminster, in the city of London, a council of delegates from 
the whole body of Puritanical dissenters, assembled and remained in ses- 
sion seven years, about two hundred and fifty years ago ; and orthodoxy, 
as we have it, was the offspring; and by reason of this long period of 
undisturbed possession, and by improving every opportunity to entrench 
and strengthen its weak position, it has become so petrified, and stereo- 
typed in its forms, that it is now very unwilling to cast off its past his- 
tory, or its past attainments; has got so far beyond and independent 
of the pale of progress, so rigid, so overbearing and unbending, that 
while science and philosophy is always far in advance of humanity, 
orthodox theology lags far behind; and is obliged to remain stationary, 
on the penalty of forfeiting the conditions of its existence. What a dis- 
graceful squabble is now in progress, to correct the past faults and mis- 
conceptions of orthodoxy, when the now concentrated and fiercely 
debated question is raised, such as the need of the radical revision of the 
rigid creed made at Westminster, which among other now perceived 
.mistakes and absurdities, was one which regarded and asserted, that the 
Roman Catholic church was anti-Christ, which result was reached after 
more than a year of fierce debate, and finally they were excluded by a 
mere majority vote, of a nest of as mean bigots as ever assembled for 
any purpose, and now as Christianity with all its efforts in orthodox 
ways to keep at least even, is manifestly losing ground, and if it longer 
persists in withholding the name of Christian from the Roman church, 
who are increasing at a fearful rate as compared to orthodoxy^ and are 
likely soon to outnumber all other Christians, the anticipated result will 
be reached that Christianity without this concession, will eventually 
entirely disappear. This superannuated action of two hundred and 
fifty years' standing, is now being reconsidered,, and the result will be 



64 The Skeptic's Defense. 

that Roman Catholics will be included, when the orthodox sects boast 
of their strength and wonderful success in spreading Christianity in the 
world; 

Another concession is demanded in these days, and will be insisted 
on, which is that relating to the damnation of unbaptized infants, or as 
these holy rascals called them non elect infants, that must be now elim- 
inated from this creed, which contains this monstrous absurdity, as 
well as the untenable doctrine of predestination or election, the exclusive 
invention of a holy impostor by the name of John Calvin, who might 
have afterwards saved Servitus, who was every way his superior, from 
the flames of martyrdom by a word, but would not, for fear that he 
would become a rival, and would not therefore coincide with him in all 
his vile, abominable inventions of a theological description. All these 
and many more untenable tenets which science has forced theologians to 
defend, and which the late higher criticism have discovered to be erro- 
neous, to the extent that they are denounced by these critics as untrue, 
as well as untenable; but these untenable and untrue portions of the 
creeds, are yet defended by a set of old superannuated moss backs, who 
perceive, that if they now admit these items are now untrue, if "follows 
they always were, and a consequence, admission would thus be made, 
that the church has so far at least been built on error only. This demand 
for a thorough revision of the orthodox creeds, comes from the young 
and progressive theologians, who perceive that unless they materially 
modify the requirements of the graduates of the theological seminaries, 
who are prepared to be ordained as ministers, with authority to teach 
and preach the gospel, their theological seminaries, and as a result their 
vacant pulpits, can no longer be filled. 

This criticism of ancient formularies, has been made for the most 
part by those who, while wishing to retain their respect and veneration 
for the scripture, as it has been formerly explained to them, perceive 
by the partial and the prejudiced views with which they must necessarily 
look at the discoveries of science, (which is only an incident and not a 
pursuit) that the idea of an infallible revelation as they have been taught 
the Bible is, must soon be abandoned; for it and science, in many 
instances are in direct conflict, and at least a compromise must be sub- 
mitted to by theology, so that the more advanced professors, are, lately, 
one after another giving public notice to the trustees or managers, that 
they will no longer submit to dictation, from those who are so rigid, 
and unreasonable, that they refuse to look at criticism; so, of course, 
the admission is freely made by the critic, that the results he claims, can- 
not be proved tG those who are either too indolent, or too indifferent, to 
examine the position taken by the critic, for such results must be per- 



The Wonderful Obstinacy of the Fanatic. 65 

ceived, by a course of training, sufficient to overcome prejudice, or big- 
otry, and submitted to a thorough culture of the perceptive faculties, 
and this course has already been pursued, by all these who are now 
demanding a radical change or revision of creeds, and longer and more 
thorough study, and comparison, will oblige the future student, to 
demand the total abolition of all creeds; for it would be just as unrea- 
sonable to think you could convince a man who obstinately refuses to 
lcok through a microscope, that the water he is about to drink is alive, 
with, to him, invisible animalculae, and he demands proof of that state- 
ment, which you cannot give on account of his refusal to look' and be 
convinced, as it is for those who oppose the revelations of science, which 
the scientist, without the slightest design or intention by his researches, 
to find the means to refute revelation, but simply to ascertain the truth, 
has enabled the skeptic,or doubters, to compare such discoveries with 
revelation, and he will not so far yield to doubt the infallibility of revel- 
ation as to make a comparison, or believe those who have made a com- 
parison, and assure them in the most positive terms of the result thereof, 
when on every other subject, these latter are considered truthful and 
reliable. So that the critic has no other resource but to leave them to 
enjoy their ignorance, and fancied safety by themselves for it is worse 
than useless to discuss great truths with small intellects, who are deter- 
mined to remain such, for obstinate denial, proceeding from ignorance 
and prejudice cannot be grappled with successfully, and therefore it is 
impossible for such reasons, to make a man see who is determined not 
to see, for men differ in nothing more radically than in their inability to 
have the same impressions from the same objects, so that uniformity of 
belief is impossible, as much as it is in size and looks, and in nothing is 
uniformity more divergent than in a conception of what to him seems to 
be god, for it is impossible to form an idea in youth that continues in 
maturity, unless that idea is planted and nourished in childhood, and 
continued to be cultivated till maturity is reached; and then when this 
instruction is withdrawn, other, and perhaps directly contrary instruc- 
tion may be presented, so as to weaken that he formerly entertained, and 
if any suitable reasons are given to the mature mind, sufficient to con- 
vince him his early instruction was false and this new instruction is true, 
he may and very likely will abandon the false, and cling to the true ; but 
that forms no reason why he should anchor his faith to this new view, 
for constant change in everything but nature's laws, is to be expected. 
The god of the ancient or primitive man, was in the outset an invention 
of the then most skillful intellect, who by reason of superior endow- 
ments, and the use of his weak reasoning faculties, and his inability to 
find any reason of a scientific kind, why his observed simple fact, that 



66 The Skeptic's Defense. 

water would run down hill, and always would refuse to run up hill, and 
many other like simple facts, he then contrived a supernatural force or 
an unseen, invisible being behind the water, to produce the motion, and 
behind the bent bow to cause the flight of the arrow in a given direction, 
where he had found an object which he wished to appropriate as food, 
or for other reasons, and this rude conception was so much above the 
ability of the average man to understand, he accepts this rude conclusion 
of the superior man, and in time, this process was gradually extended, 
so as to reach other, more intricate subjects, as the succeeding genera- 
tions, gradually, by experience and observation, developed other more 
gifted intellects, till in still later times, there had become possible, a 
faint conception of a god began to be made visible, so that they were 
able to construct a rude supposed imitation of this god or supernatural 
agency, and thus in this way, finally became the god first conceived of, 
or invented, and since then he has received many improvements, by 
adding one attribute after another, such as power, wisdom, holiness, 
love, infinity, and hosts of other qualities, as man has by development 
become able to invent, till finally a limit beyond which the present devel- 
opment is not able to go has been reached. 

This attainment was reached many thousand years ago, and since then 
nothing more real or sensible has appeared, and no description by mod- 
ern theology, is able to impress a reality of conception alike, precisely, 
on any two minds; all is confusion, indefinite and unsatisfactory, but 
when any considerable number agree to a definition made by experts, 
who are chosen on account of their admitted ability to invent a system 
of doctrines or dogmas sufficiently numerous to be able and willing to 
employ a minister or teacher to instruct them and strengthen the system, 
however erroneous its authors know it to be, he dare not individually 
express any other view than the one so prescribed to which he has 
given his assent, for fear of losing credit as a teacher, and also because it 
would be an admission, that he had been not only imposed upon him- 
self, and had himself imposed upon others, who had looked to him for 
true instruction, but also because it would cause him to lose his ability 
to procure a subsistence for himself and family. 

Humanity as soon as it became able to think, which was not until 
many ages of gradual development had passed away, and that ability 
was realized by the mass of any tribe or people, has universally, by the 
extension of this process of false instruction as to a cause, or in other 
words as god, believed in something, beyond the finite or visible. This 
something, was by these masses considered to be suitable or appropriate 
to be called god, and worthy to be adored, revered, and worshipped as 
such; and therefore the theologian uses that, as certain or unmistake- 



No One Ever Had a Conception of God. 67 

able proof that there actually is a god. So far very well, but let us not 
mistake a definition of the word, and insist that humanity has always 
believed in such, and such, a god, because, a belief in a personal super- 
natural god, formed only by our analogy in order to enforce the obliga- 
tion to love this personal God, as we love our earthly parents. Many 
ages of time have been required to reach this conception or analogy, 
for not one word, as far as we know, was ever spoken about so advanced 
a conception, till Christianity after many hundred years of development, 
finally made this great discovery or mere invention, and that was 
required to distinguish Christianity from paganism,and was not a revela- 
tion at all, so it was consequently liable to be eventually not only con- 
sidered, but actually proved to be fundamental error, and folly, because 
such love to an imaginary, unseen being as is given to a real known 
parent , is not only impossible, but absolutely unthinkable, except in 
individual, rare cases, and in such cases only imaginary. If an accurate 
idea of God is required of every one, it is the right not only, but the duty 
of every one, to fashion or imagine him after his own model. One may 
wish his god to be all love ; another all hate ; another all forgiveness, or 
pardon; another justice, and so on, till you have exhausted all conceiv- 
able qualities or attributes necessary to meet all emergencies, and con- 
centrate such combination, into a supernatural, unthinkable nonentity; 
and then attempt to intelligently adore and worship this nonentity, for 
it can never be done any further than by unmeaning words, and postures 
of the body, intended to indicate reverence or humility, and call it wor- 
ship, love, or fear. 

Perfection cannot be more than imagined by mortals, and the most 
gifted can only imagine partial perfection, and when the powers of imag- 
ination have been exhausted, to try to conceive what perfection is as 
must belong to infinity, all we can say or that theologians can say is. 
that god is perfect whatever that may be, and man finite man is, and 
must always remain imperfect. Let no one imagine that because of the 
invented scene of the crucifixion of Christ, portraying the crucifixion 
with him of two thieves,, who were falsely said to be crucified, for this 
low grade of crime which was not punishable with death under Roman 
law anyway, and were pagans, who never heard of Christ, till that lie of 
the gospel writers places them at his side, and had no more idea what, 
or who, Christ was, than the cross on which he hung, who this writer 
recites that he said " Lord wilt Thou remember me when Thou comest 
into Thy kingdom," did not in the slightest degree understand what he 
was asking for, or without the one to whom he was applying having any 
idea what he wanted, when he promised him to be with him before that 
day was ended in paradise. I say let no one imagine that this whole lying 



68 The Skeptic's Defense. 

scene, was anything but an after thought to meet a theological emer- 
gency, that was encountered and had to be met later in the experience of 
the new religion; for Matthew says, both thieves reviled him; Mark 
and John say nothing about any penitence of one thief, when giving a 
full description of all that transpired, so that Luke simply invented this 
lie as he did afterwards, when he invented that book or fragment of our 
new testament, called the Acts of the Apostles, which contains more 
lies in that compass of words, than any other production on earth, to 
cover some extreme absurdity, that all that a dying man had to do to 
merit salvation through the atoning sacrifice of the death of Christ was, 
to just indicate a wish to be saved,strong enough to be willing to ask him 
to not forget to save him, when this was the end of a long life of scornful 
indifference, and may be of high-handed opposition to every Christian 
precept, and this foolish way of securing a home in heaven, was repeated 
by Luke in the case of the turnkey or jailor, who had/ charge of some 
holy prisoners, who did not escape when an earthquake had opened the 
prison doors ; and this omission of these holy men to take their liberty, 
when divine aid had interfered to give them liberty, so wrought upon his 
weak mind, he asked them, what he must do to be saved, and was told 
all he had to do was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he, by that 
act would not only be saved, but he could include his whole family 
without their knowledge or wish to be saved, which Luke says he did 
and was saved ; just as the dying thief was, but the thief had no family, 
and that was a far more simple and easy scene to invent for him. 

What a stupendous scheme of humbug such an imposition makes 
possible, by a little farther ingenuity of later priests to profit by. Just 
think, vile wretch, whoever you are, and guilty of whatever enormity, a 
the usand times repeated, may be through a long life, at the verge of the 
grave, when society has been compelled in self defense to destroy your 
life, on the same principle, and for the same reason, that they would 
destroy a ravenous beast, or a venomous serpent, the priest comes to 
you, and offers you and urges you to rely on an unproved unreliable 
promise, made by ari unknown authority, at an unknown time and place, 
that if you will only just believe on the fictitious Lord Jesus Christ, which 
neither he or any one else has the least reason to believe has ever lived 
on earth, or in heaven, he will be eternally saved in heaven, and for 
authority on which to base this worthless promise he will refer you to 
this thief, which was never on a cross, for the reason, that there never 
was any authority in Roman law to put him there for so slight a cause, 
and this farce is in actual use at the present day, in the most highly 
civilized Christian countries on the face of the earth, with not only the 
permission of the civil law, but it is also insisted on, as both a privilege 



A Blot on Christianity. 69 

and a duty, of every variety of creeds among Christians, and is one of 
the foul blots on the foul page of priestly influence to perpetuate, and 
make permanent an imposition, having so respectable an origin. 

It is a comfortable reflection, and one that reflects high honor on 
other nations than Christian, that this and many other outrageous 
farces of a like kind, are not permitted under any other system but the 
Christian, and these unheard of absurdities, constitute together or sep- 
arate a foul, unnecessary blot, that disgrace both the system, and its 
apologists, makes it impossible for common sense when it can escape 
the contaminating influence of theology, to either approve or sustain 
this enormous farce called Christianity. The wise man is inclined, 
unless restrained by social or business complications, to at least think, if 
not act for himself, and admit or deny, as he sees best, all things con- 
sidered, for prudence requires a conformity, at least an apparent one to 
the prevailing sentiment of the community among which his lot, without 
his choice is unalterably fixed, and he is not called upon except in 
widely separated emergencies, to adopt the role of reformer, for in even 
a neutral position he is made to feel he must openly take sides, for 
Christ has told the Christian fanatics in the gospel, that everyone who is 
not for me is against me, and unless you can be influenced by the priest 
to as much as pretend to favor Christianity, you are suspected and 
regarded as an open enemy of Christ, in proportion as your position, 
socially, or financially, makes your influence and assistance mitigate 
your indifference. An atheist is by that simple denial of god and devil, 
heaven and hell, released from all apprehension as to the future life, and 
is therefore a moral man, because merely and only that it isright for 
comfort and satisfaction in this life, on this earth, and if he is a vile 
wretch, and also an atheist besides, he is no worse off than the theist 
vile wretch is in this life, and unlike him, he is relieved from the fear 
and apprehension of both present and future punishment, which is a 
greater advantage than the unfounded hope of heaven by a death bed 
repentance can neutralize. 

The priest tells you and me, thati the death bed requires the dying 
person to have a religion. If I ask him which variety, he tells me mine ; 
so when I fall sick, and feel myself enfeebled, my mind experiencing 
also in sympathy with my body a nervous excitability, an inclination to 
piety, if never before pious, and if a back slider, or an apostate, a return 
to piety, and have at the last breath said a penitent word, to comfort, it 
may be a friend, I leave behind, or a priest who will repeat such words 
and enlarge upon his .success in rescuing a brand from the burning, 
such a process, when carried to its limit, is not worth the required bodily 
or mental effort to either the dying person or his associate. What a 



70 The Skeptic's Defense. 

deplorable, wretched condition every man is left in, who so far yields to 
a changed conviction, as to express to his former intimate associates 
such change, which in nearly every case results in not only isolating 
him from his own family, included in his own household, but also from 
his former religious family as well, when not the least change in his 
character or conduct is perceptible, but there is now manifested an indif- 
ference, and aversion when before such change, cordiality and toleration 
made his social condition satisfactory, and these and other like consid- 
erations not being ascertainable until the actual condition is met, does not 
have the restraining influence to cause that deliberation and hesitation, 
which his experience has taught him would have been preferable, and 
so when compelled to see those he best loves, as the best and purest 
minds on earth, look upon him, and actually regard him as impious, 
wicked, and forever damned, because this is imperatively demanded of 
them from the very necessity of their unfounded, silly faith, in nothing 
better than false orthodoxy, a fatal, wicked, cursed, damnable, invention, 
that is directly responsible for more misery, insanity, woe, and every vile 
consequence, than all other influences combined, a foe of peace and a 
direct cause of separation, whenever, and wherever introduced. And 
what right have the theologians to promise, or expect any other result, 
if, instead of holding up the Christian profession as a thing to be desired 
above and beyond every acquisition, they were to refer the anxious 
inquirer to what Matthew says, in chapter tenth, from the thirty-fourth 
to the thirty-ninth verse he would be sure to repel, and drive from the 
pursuit of the Christian life every candid person to whom such an alter- 
native was presented, " Think not I am come to send peace on earth, 1 
come not to send peace but a sword." 

Why then does inspiration name you the prince of peace ; " I am 
come to set a son at variance against his father, and a daughter against 
her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law," as if 
that result was not already likely to occur without such a cause as for 
one or both of them to be a Christian fanatic, a very strong reason why 
Christian fellowship should be avoided and despised by every right- 
minded person, as it inevitably would be if the child was permitted to 
have any choice in the matter, and universally is by all adult unin- 
structed persons when left alone by the priest. 

Respectability is a great word, and has a great influence to attract 
weak minded and unprincipled people, and in every city or town of any 
importance, orthodoxy has secured so strong a possession by want of 
any opposition, that it is able to decide who, and what is respectable; 
and hence they uniformly decide themselves, the only ones who are 
entitled to that position in society, unless by so deciding they reject the 



My Experience as a Church Member. 71 

wealthy and generous among the neturals ;who are included for these 
reasons to at least social recognition, but not to intimacy, unless after 
much priestly influence and persuasion they turn hypocrites,and join the 
church, for how can a man believe only what a child believes, or simply 
and only what a woman believes, or if you pjease reverse the simile, but 
the woman and the child join hands and demand, in the name of heaven, 
believe as we do or you will be aamned, and the priest says, " Amen." 

One day, at the foot of the altar, when a man in size, but a babe in 
religious experience, I said to the Christian's god, " I obey you, and sur- 
render to your just demands." Before this, I had not much reflected; 
since this, I have reflected a great deal ; at every point when I looked at 
that altar, doubt followed me. When afterwards I consulted science, 
the oriest said it was a demon. These contrary conditions continued. 
What means this periodical observance of a rite called communion? 
Nothing. Experience told me as it unmistakably and uniformly tells 
every one who ever observed it. It told me, and it told them, that it 
was a mere empty device or invention, with an object to impress an 
abominable deception, for a ceremony whose original was never had, 
and therefore not required to be continued, and after further experience, 
examination, and reflection, I said, I have followed a wicked damnable 
lie long enough, I will abandon this miserable lie, and all its upholders, 
and apologists; now, I will seek for truth, and when I receive such 
proof as to the truth of any important proposition, as to me is satis- 
factory, and not before, I will seize! it and hold on to it, so here I am 
writing this confession, without remorse or repentance; but with the 
isolation and sepa r ation referred to above. A few years at most will 
complete a life which has seventy-six years of duration, and I rejoice to 
leave on record for those of my successors, into whose hands these lines 
may come, the above testimony, as well as what follows. 

I totally reject every belief I ever had that was founded on the Bible, 
as it is held by any sect of Christians or Jews, or in any supernatural 
religion whatever, or in any god, or in any devil as disclosed by any 
human discovery, or by my own perception, or in any future life as 
neither an object to be expected or desired, and I hope most earnestly, 
sincerely and tenaciously, that when I am compelled to encounter death 
consciously, and in anticipation, I may have the courage to adhere to 
these expressed beliefs, and if, on account of mental weakness, I give 
expression in oral language to any word inconsistent with the above, I 
may not be thought to have recanted so as to be considered among the 
saints in heaven, many who on earth deserved to be forever despised 
and shunned, and I further hope that any person to whose care and 
keeping these imperfect sketches, which but faintly and imperfectly 



72 The Skeptic's Defense. 

express my convictions, will preserve them and take them for a founda- 
tion, to rewrite, and revise, and add to them so as to make a volume, 
unique and valuable, and that I may thus, incidentally, be the means of 
undoing some of the evil, I have unintentionally done, before I came to 
this determination, by my example of supporting and advocating a false 
system, and teaching my children and Sunday-school children for many 
years to do the same, and if I should say anything inconsistent with 
such disclosures as I have made in any of these imperfect writings on a 
death bed, or in any other situation, when in danger of speedy death, 
my biographers are forbidden not to regard such utterances, as the 
result of delirium and of consequence, the result of disease or opiates. 
By far too many Christian lies are told about dying skeptics, recanting 
when too late, for no importance attaches to any utterance, whether of 
hope or despair, they are one and all of them without the least signifi- 
cance whatever. 

The theological controversies of the period in which the writer 
of these lines has lived, have been carried on chiefly by those who 
are admitted on all hands to be as able men as are to be found 
among the adherents of two rival and opposite systems or views. 
The naturalist or materialist who rejects the theory of a personal 
creator or originator, who made all things visible and invisible out of 
nothing, in six days, which the believer in a supernatural originator has 
named god, but which he simply calls nature, and denies the way that 
creation is by the former said to have proceeded, has always demanded 
proof or demonstration from the supernaturalist, which in the nature of 
the case he cannot furnish, but he only can assume such and such to be 
the case, or true, because a certain pretended revelation has declared, 
that various observed results are due to this, supernatural cause, which is 
only another assumption. There has always been, and there very likely 
always will be able men, to whom revealed religion will not commend 
itself, for the reason, that demonstration is in the nature of things which 
are required to be explained, impossible to be proved, and the portal of 
the mind through which conviction must come, which portal is the sur- 
rendering the reason to be guided by a supernatural assertion, is far too 
lowly for such a one who requires proof to enter, and therefore, if you 
eliminate or separate the supernatural or miraculous from Christianity, 
nothing of any value is left, for Christian morality is no better than any 
other kind of morality, and the stupendous vices that afflict, and are the 
invariable accompaniment of Christianity, are enormously more per- 
nicious than can be found under any other system. 

The miraculous conception of the Christians' Jesus, begins a train of 
many miracles, which finally and speedily ends in his death, resurrection, 



The Christ of the Gospels an Invention. 73 

and ascension, and if these things did not occur, but are only the 
unproved assertion of an unknown author, confirmed by several more 
unknown authors, who lived, nobody knows when or where, then this 
whole Christian system is a farce instead of a solemn reality, and when, 
after the most thorough and patient investigation has been made by 
the naturalist, to discover any confirmatory proof of these unfounded 
statements have been in vain, he is compelled to not only withhold his 
assent, but to deny vigorously and positively such statements, and it is 
therefore a duty which he owes to his associates not only, but to the 
world at large, to give such reasons as he has to them, also, for their 
benefit. It would at first sight appear a bold and hopeless task, for 
even an infidel, or any advanced grade of skeptic, to as much as doubt 
or call in question the reality of the foundation on which Christianity 
depends for its existence. Did any Christ, such as the gospel writers 
describe, ever live actually on earth, or is the Christ of these gospels 
imaginary or fictitious, the invention of a dramatic novelist of a long 
past age, when ignorance and superstition made deception and impos- 
ture easy, and successful? There is abundant evidence to which the most 
obdurate of the many skeptics will assent, that in order to invent or con- 
struct a new system, to supercede the old Jewish system, there lived til 
that age and country, at the alleged or supposed time when these books 
or fragments were written, a large, or comparatively large number of 
able writers, both of history and fiction, or poetry, and as none of these 
writers had anything better than traditions of a then long previous age 
on which to construct this new system, all that they wrote was an elab- 
oration or extension of these traditions, in the form of dramatic or poetic 
fiction, having in its leading character or hero, as near perfection, as 
any being that was both divine and human should be, or in other words, 
as their conception of absolute holiness enabled them to invent, and the 
inferior or minor characters, as far removed from such perfection as 
could be conceived, so that the contrast was easily perceived. 

However perfect the writers of the story made their hero in their 
own estimation, or that of their contemporaries from the then universally 
accepted standards of moral character, and however their immediate 
successors, who were all critical writers, or at least those which have 
come to our knowledge were, coincided to establish a basis on which 
to build the edifice, which by mutual and many concessions and altera- 
tions finally developed into Christianity, there is found to be by those 
who have had the experience and study of the fifteen hundred years that 
has intervened, an entire want of consistency or agreement, among the 
adherents or different varieties of Christian sects, so that none are to 
the other, Christian, more than in name; the separation of the Greek 



74 The Skeptic's Defense. 

from the Roman Christians, and their consequent renunciation ot 
co-operation, or even fellowship in any sense, in consequence of their 
denying the authority of the Roman Pope or Pontiff, entirely. A further 
separation was made, when Martin Luther and others withdrew from 
the Roman church in the sixteenth century, and one later separation 
from the Luther faction, has so divided the first original imposition, that 
the controversies, and divisions, that the various scientific discoveries 
contradictory of the Bible, are when reinforced by the various grades of 
infidels, compelling the advocates of the truth of the Bible to make, will 
further weaken and ultimately uproot the whole unnecessary and worth- 
less imposition, for true education, in any direction, is such as requires 
things such as the learner must give his assent to, to be as they actually 
are, and not merely as some one or more says they are, and being thus 
educated, we can distinguish what is actually true, and belongs to us, 
from that which is both false and incredible, and therefore does not 
belong to us, for there is only one endowment which is fully ours, and 
that is our will or purpose. How came we by this will? The super- 
naturalist says, God gave it to us. The naturalist says it is ours by 
inheritance, and therefore spontaneous and unavoidable, not to be 
restrained or thwarted by any power outside of ourselves, and no god of 
any system of theology can interfere with it, so as to either modify or 
control it, for nothing external, such as death, pain, exile, or any such 
thing, is in any case the cause of our acting, or not acting; and the 
cause is found simply and only in our own opinions, and in our judg- 
ments. 

A certain English poet, by the name of John Milton, lived in Eng- 
land, in the middle of the seventeenth century, and secured an unde- 
served notoriety among his contemporaries. This contemptible, relig- 
ious, fanatical vagabond, whose writings have been such a comfort and 
strength to orthodox Christianity, was, in his private life, one of the 
most if not the most contemptibly hateful men that England ever pro- 
duced, and is so characterized by both his biographers, and the ency- 
clopedias, which both assert that his young wife, or bride, discovered 
his hateful disposition before the marriage festivities were ended, so that 
she firmly refused to go to live with him, and this insult to his dignity, 
caused him to write a book against the existing laws of England, relat- 
ing to marriage, which was entitled, " The doctrine and discipline of 
divorce, restored, to the good of both sexes ; " to which he dared not 
affix his name as author, on account of the scandalous views he advo- 
cated therein; one of these declared emphatically, that the notion of a 
sacramental sanctity in the marriage relation was a clerical superstition, 
invented and put in practice by the priests, and laboriously argued the 



The Scandalous Career of John Milton. 75 

point, that inherent incompatibility of character, or contrariety of mind 
between two married persons, is a perfectly just reason for divorce. 
Many other like absurdities which he was known to entertain, were in 
this book recorded, which finally led to the discovery, that Milton was 
the author, and he narrowly escaped prosecution. After he and his 
young bride had lived separate about two years, mutual friends inter- 
fered, and an outward reconciliation was effected, so that they came 
together in a hateful union, lasting about ten years, and in that time his 
numerous writings of a political character nearly sent him to the scaf- 
fold. It will be noticed that his views about marriage very nearly coin- 
cide with those held by most infidels, but in them it is held to be mon- 
strous and criminal, but in a bigoted Christian if not condemned, it is 
excused or overlooked. 

This hateful, religious vagabond, afterwards, when entirely blind, 
immortalized his name among the orthodox from that time to this, by 
dictating to one of his daughters, who served him against her will, as an 
amenuensis, or clerk, the scaldalous poem, called " Paradise Lost," 
which was itself founded on a lie, and the lie consisted of the false 
accounts of the creation of the earth and its inhabitants, as it is found 
recorded in some of the first chapters of the Bible, of which this great or 
small poem as you may please to call it, is a mere paraphrase or repeti- 
tion, in other words, than those in which it was first written, which, 
when you call it a lie, you give it a name none too strong, because any 
being more intelligent than a fool, ought to be able to know that such an 
origin was nothing better than theory or supposition, and clothing it 
with poetic nonsense in the way he did, was only strengthening the lie, 
but it helps the priests to, in a small degree, satisfy the people, who 
demand of them an answer to the question of how came we here? 
When came we here? and for what purpose came we here? A simple 
answer such as we don't know, or, it is of no consequence, would have 
satisfied for the most part those who made the inquiry, and no lie, such 
as this was required, for in the very nature of the case, these priests and 
their successors, have always been, and they always will be precluded, 
from the possibility of finding any evidence of the origin of man, or of 
matter, in any of its forms, so as to be able to testify, if they continue to 
ignore and abuse science, as much as any child is precluded from wit- 
nessing, or of giving testimony of its own birth. No supernaturalist 
can give as much as good or even probable circumstantial evidence, for 
it in all cases only rests on assertion or assumption, but nevertheless, 
weak and untruthful as it confessedly is, it holds both the Jewish and the 
Christian portion of mankind in a grasp, so tenacious, that, when science 
approaches them with unanswerable proof, that they are the victims of 



76 The Skeptic's Defense. 

deception and imposition, they look upon the scientist with contempt, 
and abhorrence, simply for the reason that his demonstrations contra- 
dict revelation, and revelation is not to be contradicted, because it 
emanates from God himself. Such an assumption if it rested on as much 
as probability, would have some value as an argument, but when noth- 
ing but the naked assertion can be produced, without the slightest proof, 
or even guess who made the assertion, or when it was made, or where it 
was made, no body having as much intelligence as an oyster has, ought 
to give the slightest heed to it. The occurrence of historical facts is 
not always capable of demonstration, but in all cases when the evidence 
that they happened, is of such a character as to render the idea that they 
did not happen in the highest degree improbable, enough is proved to 
justify its acceptance. Science, in many departments has not yet reached 
completion, but the discoveries already made in those yet in embryo, 
give strong reasons to expect, that further discoveries will be made, 
which will strengthen and establish what has been made in that branch, 
and when more complete experiments and discoveries have been made 
in such uncompleted sciences as chemistry, astronomy, physiology, and 
all the uncompleted sciences, furnish the opportunity of continuing, in 
the end, science will solve many, and perhaps most of the mysteries 
which are now met with, and which have thus far baffled and hindered a 
full explanation of many intricate phenomena. The sciences of evolu- 
tion, of zoology, botany, and geology, are yet nearly new, and are 
beine advanced with reasonable speed, considering that the church has 
always,and now does by sneers,and often of open warfare and opposition 
hindered all the sciences, from the earliest times to the present from 
reaching the advanced position in the estimation of those, who, were it 
not for religious scruples and bias, would be glad to, if not adopt, to at 
least investigate for themselves the teachings of science, as they are dis- 
closed in any number of the most valuable works, in any branch of 
human knowledge. 

There are in every civilized community, large numbers of well mean- 
ing, honest and candid persons, whose judgment and opinions are 
entitled to the utmost respect on account of this honesty and sincerity, 
who have imbibed, perhaps in early life, unavoidably from their training, 
by parents or otherwise, and cherished and strengthened this early 
received opinion or belief, that all questions relating to the origin of 
vital phenomena, are questions quite apart from the as much as right to 
enquire into; being by their very nature placed out of our reach, for 
these vital phenomena originated miraculously, or in some way totally 
different from the ordinary course of nature, and therefore they con- 
sider it not only useless, but absolutely presumptuous for man to as 



Science is Certain — Revelation Uncertain. 77 

much as wish to enquire into them, and for such a reason, regard not 
only scientists, but also science itself with a sort of holy scorn and 
pity, and complacently consider themselves entirely safe and sure, to 
cling to the anchor of revelation; and the priests cultivate and applaud 
such a disposition, for their own security as instructors, defenders, and 
interpreters of revealed truth so regarded, or pretended to be by them, 
depends on defeating all scientific inquiry, and fortifying the imposition 
thev have always fastened as secure as possible upon these innocent and 
unsuspecting people. 

No scientist the world has ever produced ever was, or ever can be 
made into a religious bigoted fanatic, or even a believer in anything 
supernatural, such as the so-called revelation is full of, and in all its 
allusions to any subject where accuracy of statement must be had, to 
entitle such statement to receive any credit,shows an entire want of even 
ordinary common sense, as in the case for example where the sun and 
mc on received an order not a request, from, a man, to stop and stand 
there, till he had completed the sanguinary slaughter of a few thousand 
more of his fellowmen, which, as the order was not obeyed, but only the 
lie is given that it was,no disaster was caused by such stopping, and every 
scientist unmistakably knows, that if the earth was to stop its revolu- 
tion on its axis so as to prolong the day one instant, when the speed 
with which it revolves is a thousand miles an hour, would have caused 
by a sudden stop, not only the prostration of every object on its surface, 
but the earth itself, and likely the whole solar system would have been 
annihilated, and this result is not speculation, but scientific certainty, 
for the method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression 
of the necessary mode in which the human mind necessarily acts, when 
it has been left free, or not permitted false instruction to paralize its 
ability to act. 

The chemist could never as much as begin any experiment, if he was 
compelled to use the scales that the grocer, or butcher uses, and which 
are sufficiently accurate for their purpose, but he must have a balance 
finely adjusted, and finely graduated, exact weights to perform a difficult 
and complex analysis. Not, however, for the reason that the scales in 
the one case, and the balance in the other, differ in the principles of 
their construction, or the manner of working, but the balance of the 
chemist, is set on an infinitely finer axis than the other, and turns by 
the addition of a much smaller weight. This illustrates, that there is no 
one of our surest convictions, which may not be at least modified, if not 
completely upset by a further accession of knowledge, and this knowl- 
edge may be acquired in some unexpected way, as for instance, the 
lately discovered science of evolution,when it reaches its limit, or ultimate 



78 The Skeptic's Defense. 

development, is sure to destroy the special creation hypothesis of the 
"Bible, whose defenders fondly hoped was so fixed by the inspiration 
invention, as to be unassailable. 

When we are ready to admit that the small word, matter, is compre- 
hensive enough to include in its definition all that exists, and that its 
product mind can in some sense control matter, or cause it to change its 
mode of acting, we have just begun to understand the rudiments which 
precede the ability to comprehend all the further disclosures that follow 
further investigations of a mysterious subject, and accordingly, the 
naturalist has reasoned the origin of mind to be, in or from matter. All 
animate nature is endowed with a faculty, corresponding to what man 
has named his mind, or as some or may be all theologians say his soul, 
in a just proportion to their needs or requirements in the sphere wherein 
they move, and out of which they can never emerge, and beyond which 
they never aspire, but when some species by domestication, and associa- 
tion with the highest form of animal life, man, can be in some degree, 
by perservering effort taught, and developed, so as to show intelligence 
greater than any specimen of his kind in a wild state can. This result 
is reached when reached at all, by means of educating the young imma- 
ture animal, when rescued from its wild associates, and the same ani- 
mal, when unrestrained is led and governed by instinct. Nothing is 
weaker than a human infant, intellectually, and when born, and as soon 
as it is ushered into the atmosphere far enough to begin respiration, 
then, and not before, the faculty called mind, is by the act of inhaling its 
first breath of atmospheric air created, and started on a career of devel- 
opment, that never ceases till it no longer can be sustained by the 
breathing of the animal in which it has found a home, and that home, 
in all cases, is the brain, formed to be the home of the mental portion of 
the human organism, and that is the beginning of the intellect,, mind 
or soul, as you please to call it, in the human and all other animals, who 
have a brain, and according as it is cultivated in the human animal, in 
that ratio is it developed, till maturity is reached, without differing essen- 
tially in kind, in the various grades and species of animal life, but only 
in degree or ratio. Uniformity to receive and retain impressions, or the 
capacity to do this from surrounding conditions is never found; endless 
variety is everywhere met with, and this applies to, not only the mind, 
but also the body of every animal, causing an endless variety of results 
and conflicts of opinions on any given proposition, and makes it impos- 
sible, for any two individuals to precisely agree on any subject, and 
nothing seems more foolish, than for an inventor of any new system to 
expect to succeed in his endeavor to produce any more than an outward 
consent to such new proposition, for unless he takes the child, and 



What Makes a Man Strictly Holy. 79 

prevents any interference while the child is growing to maturity, and 
instructs his intellect, and in that way impresses the growing mental 
capacity so that the ability to get any other is always much weakened, 
and in most cases destroyed, and such is now and always has been the 
way, that every form of religious belief has been able to become estab- 
lished, so as to organize and form a system, and therefore any effort to 
assail or oppose such a system, results in poor success, on account of 
each organized form having an educated priesthood, and an ignorant 
rabble on which to live and thrive, and impose such monstrous absurd- 
ities as are, or seem to be required from time to time. 

One of the worst if not the very worst impositions ever invented by 
that rascally set of men called priests, of both the Jewish, and Christian 
form or religion, the principal one on which they are both founded, and 
without which neither of them could ever have succeeded and these 
priests early perceived in the outset that they could not, is the old 
downright lie, as well as the unfounded and unsupported one, that the 
Bible, as a whole, and in all its parts is the inspired word of God, or in 
other words not less positive and emphatic, his revealed will, for they 
both agree in their conception of what god certainly is. Nothing better 
than one naked sentence or paragraph, has ever been offered as proof, 
that god ever authorized on instructed any one to write one word of this 
mess of worthless rubbish, which is by them referred to, and that sen- 
tence is in these words : " Holy men of God spake and wrote as they were 
moved by, or instructed by the Holy Ghost or Spirit." Who were, and 
what were, some of these holy men? One of the first, if not the very first, 
both in point of priority and in importance, was " Moses ; " Was he a 
holy man? That depends on what you mean by that word, holy. If 
you mean, as the word holy always means when used in scripture, free 
from sinful thoughts, affections and tendencies, or conduct, pure, irre- 
proachable, or guiltless, he was as far removed from holiness, as the 
average of men of every age or country, if his character and conduct is 
correctly delineated in this Holy Bible, and his mistakes and contradic- 
tions are numerous and glaring, and he is perhaps the most prolific of 
all who are credited by theologians, as authors or writers. According 
to the above definition, was David a holy man, for he is another pro- 
lific writer of poetry, or psalms, which is the! Hebrew name for poetry. 
Was Solomon, another prolific writer of Proverbs, and songs of an 
amorous nature, a holy man? for his character and conduct, as well as 
that of his father or his mother, comes far short of being worthy to be 
the vehicle or the agent, for a holy god to select and use, through or by 
whom to speak to universal mankind such words as would be regarded 
by them as inspired or revealed. These three are the most holy and 



80 The Skeptic's Defense. 

eminent men that can be named, as writers, both as regards the amount, 
and the value of what they wrote, and these have their characters, or the 
best parts thereof fully set forth. 

The other writers are both unknown and too obscure to be entitled 
to be described, but it is a fair inference, that they are not any better 
than those are, about whom so much is told, Moses, David and Solo- 
mon. This word or adjective, " Holy," has been corruptly extended, 
and applied so as to signify every species of unholy mummeries, or 
observancies of the Christian church, more especially that division called 
t\\2 Roman Catholic, such as holy water, holy alliance, holy office, mean- 
ing the inquisition, the most horrible unholy institution ever devised by 
man, holy Thursday, holy week, holy Sabbath, holy Bible, and hosts of 
others. It is therefore a just conclusion, that if nothing is inspired 
except what holy men have written, as you perceive that word holy 
must be denned, there is no such thing as a written revelation, on which 
to found any system of religion or even morality, for if you define mor- 
ality to mean such vile conduct as these noted Bible writers practiced, it 
would be of as low an order as any savage tribe ever practiced. This 
idea or even the word inspiration is not exclusively Christian; all the 
varieties of pagans have had their inspired speakers, and also writers; 
and the Christians coming later on the stige, have simply adopted pagan 
ideas, to intensify the imposition they were about to introduce, with the 
intention and hope, to be able to found a new system to supercede 
paganism, because these ambitious and aspiring first impostors, were 
not able to find sufficient scope and opportunity to operate successfully, 
in a long established and declining imposition, as the Jewish had 
become about two thousand years ago, when a pagan or Jewish, poet, 
orator or a philosopher and prophet, was called inspired, when he only 
differed from other men because of a special faculty or endowment, by 
which he was able to impress the ignorant rabble, so as to become 
famous. The classical languages are full of words and phrases which 
express the idea of inspiration, and they have been adopted by Christian 
theological writers, and used to describe what Jewish and Christian 
divines have called inspiration, but the Christian places a slightly differ- 
ent meaning to that put on the word by the Jew or pagan, but one no 
better or more expressive. The pagan and Jewish notion of inspiration 
(for the whole idea or word by whoever it is used is nothing but a 
notion) related to the condition of the one, who for the moment was in 
the trance or in a hypnotic state. Whereas the Christian was only con- 
cerned with the result of what the one who was in this hypnotic state 
or condition disclosed while he was in that state or trance, as we now 
call it, for we have individuals in as great numbers with us who are 



Why All Skeptics Reject Revelation. 81 

experts in this same inspiration business, who are as, and perhaps more 
gifted, to reveal the divine will as any that have ever existed; conse- 
quently the Christian theology only takes account of the supposition or 
implicit, unquestioned belief in the theory, that God has, only through 
means of these inspired or holy men, who he caused when in this 
hypnotic or trance state to put in writing his thus revealed will, so that 
men might have it permanently, fully and infallibly in a true and trust- 
worthy way so that is reduced to this simple form in these words. 

In the Bible, all men can have and all who have the Bible do have 
god's revelation, wholly committed to writing, and this has been written 
out under the special guidance and direction, of almighty God, and it is 
impossible for him to authorize or permit any error. If such a theory, 
(for it is only a theory) could be established then, the Bible would bt 
what these theological impostors, not to say liars, assert it is entitled to 
great attention, but otherwise it should be entirely neglected, and not 
only so, but these arch impostors, who teach men this abominable fraud, 
should be held up to scorn and loathing unutterable, for daring to aid 
and abet this imposition, when these leaders and teachers know it is 
that and nothing else. When the objector or skeptic, if you please to so 
designate him, inquires of the schoolmen, or in other words of the theo- 
logical professor,' why it was necessary for almighty God to communi- 
cate to the world the long histories, the tables long and tiresome of 
genealogies, and the scandalous conduct of some of these most holy men 
of old, whose moral character would disgrace modern society to such an 
extent, that they would be social outcasts, when such disclosures did not 
contain one doctrinal precept, or give the slightest guide to holy living, 
you will be told by these holy villains, that all this is allegory, for it is 
useful for you to know, that allegory, will turn the dryest details of 
scandalous conduct into a moral code; and such answer, although not 
satisfactory to the skeptic, is considered satisfactory by the student who 
receives instruction from the rascally professor, or has been so consid- 
ered till very lately, when some doubt has found an entrance into some 
minds. He is further told, that there are two kinds of inspiration, the 
direct and indirect. The former, teaches directly doctrinal and moral 
truths, and the latter teaches that the doctrinal and moral precepts can 
only be indirectly evolved by the use of allegorical interpretation. All 
these and many more theories like these, but if possible, more absurd 
and monstrous, were held and taught to all those who aspired when 
young to become priests, and rigidly enforced upon all priests who took 
orders up to the time of the reformation, by one Martin Luther, and 
later others of whom he was leader, who had broken loose from the 
Roman church, and they then reformed in some sense the theory of 



82 The Skeptic's Defense. 

inspiration, as well as many cither important matters, but did not 
improve, but only changed the form. They held and established, and 
ever since have taught in their theological colleges, that the main reason 
why the scripture was inspired by the direct influence of the holy spirit 
or spirit of God was, that it not only made a touch stone in religious 
controversy, but also that it being the divine word of God it thus 
became a sword of the spirit, to pierce the heart and conscience of as 
many simple fools as they or, their successors, might persuade to come 
under their pernicious instruction. 

A vast amount of such unmeaning theological twaddle as the 
above has ever since the reformation been added to theological contro- 
versy, mainly for the purpose of sustaining some trifling discrepancy, 
so as to make an excuse or apology for some new sect, which in its 
ramifications of details it is unprofitable to try to describe; but enough 
has been disclosed to convince any candid and unbiased mind that it is 
all the merest rubbish, not worth a minute's worry or even the slightest 
notice, in any other way, but to estimate the vast needless expense and 
burden it is, to be borne almost wholly by those who are without this 
burden, hardly able to subsist on the most meagre fare, for it is 
impossible to get even an approximate estimate of the vast aggregate, 
but it is within bounds to say, that the worthless systems of religion that 
have always cursed the world, have cost more than all other 
expenses combined. The principal reason why the idea or theory of the 
inspiration of the Bible was and is insisted on, is that it was considered 
to be of the first importance, that the most absolute uniformity of belief 
must in some way be had, and so, of course a universal, unquestioned 
assent to inspired revelation, must produce such uniformity. This was 
found on trial to be an enormous fatal error. The inventors of this 
scheme miscalculated, or failed to perceive, that uniformity in any direc- 
tion either in mind or matter, would be a direct impossibility, for no 
two grains of sand, no two leaves of the forest, or no two of nature's 
productions were precisely alike, and therefore, compulsion or force 
must be used, to produce sufficient harmony to 'prevent the diabolical 
scheme from a premature collapse; so, in order to justify the application 
of such force, and compel those who had once, by reason of the use of 
the most persuasive eloquence, .as some of the most able of the learned 
clergy, who by the way were almost the only class of men of that age, 
who were permitted to have access to learning, were so over-persuaded 
by such plausible arguments, as to give an outward consent to become 
identified with the organization of Christians, and be put through the 
initiation required to join such church organization, and without sus- 
pecting that by so doing or consenting, they were to be prohibited 



The Conclusions of Skeptics Stated. 83 

through life from changing such belief, which had been forced up,on 
them by false teaching, in consequence of receiving other impressions 
from other teaching which conflicted with that they at first received, so 
as to convince them it was only error. The experience of the first two 
hundred years of this new imposition, satisfied the impostors who 
invented this Christian humbug, that they needed further protection to 
prevent its entire collapse and dissolution, which was seen to be inev- 
itable, unless some addition to this imposition could be made, so the 
leaders got together in council, and after much deliberation and many 
mutual concessions, to prevent disintegration, agreed upon the system 
which every previous form of religion had adopted called theology, a 
crude, imperfect system at the outset, but which after various alterations 
and additions, finally developed into a science; so satisfactory as to 
seem to need no further change, which was called, first, the science of 
Christian faith and life. 

This first system, only sought to adapt itself to the capacity of the 
Asiatic civilization, and to an undeveloped knowledge of scripture 
teaching, which had not yet assumed the form it afterwards reached, 
when the epistles of the apostles, and the gospels of the evangelists were 
invented, written out, and gathered into the form of revealed or inspired 
truth, called now the new testament. These writings, by unknown 
authors, were undoubtedly fictitious or imaginary, a pure invention, as 
much as any writing of that dramatic and sensational character is that 
has since then been put upon the market ; a mere after thought, required 
to try to satisfy such, as otherwise would have apostatized and gone 
back to paganism ; but this device did not, and it could not prevent the 
disruption of the church into many warring factions, one of which 
claimed to be genuine, and therefore decreed all the others to be spur- 
ious, and these in turn, combining in the form called the Greek Christ- 
ian Catholic Church, have always and do hold the Roman church to be 
spurious, and the Protestant church holds them both in contempt as 
anti-Christ, consequently spurious, and other or pagan religious forms, 
embracing and including more than two-thirds of the human race, 
regards them all as not only spurious, but worthless, and this writer 
who records these statements, is thoroughly satisfied, that every form 
of religion, pagan, Mahometan, Jewish, or Christian, is, was, and will 
be as long as they exist, not only spurious and worthless, but also per- 
nicious, and nothing better than fraud. 

It is to be observed with reference to theology, that notwithstanding 
its inventors, and its defenders claim it to be a science, that it is not. a 
science; for if it were it would be capable of demonstration which it is 
not, and never will or can be, for all grades of intelligence among the 



84 The Skeptic's Defense. 

most able scholars, differ as much on that branch of learning as any 
other; for while it is possible to teach science and not be obliged to 
resort to controversy to defend it, it is impossible to so teach theology, 
and that makes it to be necessary, for every division or sect of Christ- 
ians, to have separate theological seminaries, in which to educate 
such students as come to them, and satisfy them that they wish to be 
instructed, and when considered competent, they wish to advocate and 
uphold such doctrines as that particular sect had invented, and also 
defend by such acquired capacity against all others, these worthless doc- 
trines. 

The word theology is derived from the greek " Theo " meaning god, 
and the latin logos, meaning logic, and therefore means god logic, or 
logic of or about god, and basing it all on a mere assumption that there 
is a god, which they do not as much attempt to prove, and then b\ 
logic, argue and mystify, analyze and analogize, and finally systematize, 
or organize, into a system or form, as Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, 
and what not. In the outset of the invention of theology, the Greeks 
and Romans could not distinguish between nature and revelation, or 
between reason and faith, in their distinctive, or in a Christian sense. 
The natural theology came into reputation notwithstanding the oppo- 
sition of those who have always denied its existence, and therefore it 
contended that reason of itself alone, can teach us absolutely nothing 
about God, or our duty in reference to him. This is the kind of theology 
adopted by the old or pagan religions, and of course must be modified 
and altered to conform to a new standard, and so many and great diffi- 
culties were met with, and so much controversy indulged in, that no 
uniform system was realized till about the seventeenth century, when 
the present or comparative theology, took the place of natural theology 
in so far as adaptation to Christianity was concerned, but a distinction 
has in recent times been made, as to the true mode of study or investi- 
gation of comparative theology; one class insisting that theology is the 
science of god only, and the other, that it is the science also of religion. 
This latter view is now most commonly being received and taught in 
orthodox seminaries, on the supposition that it is impossible to obtain 
or acquire any definite knowledge of god, but the objector for the rea- 
son that the word religion is ambiguous, or capable of many definitions, 
therefore is of a doubtful application, and also that to define theology as 
the science of religion, makes theology entirely independent of the Bible, 
so that this continual hair-splitting controversy, about mere non-essen- 
tials, is interminable, and irreconcilable, as well as nonsensical, for what 
difference to the average man can be realized, whether one or the other 
is preferable, or whether both are spurious; it is only a mere device of a 



The Nature and Use of Theology Explained. 85 

theologic expert, to so throw dust in the eyes of those from whom he 
draws a good, fat living, without rendering any valuable service, that no 
conclusion can ever be reached, and in this way the deception be made 
perpetual. 

The absurdity of trying to build a theological structure on the god 
of the Bible is plainly apparent, when it is shown that it reveals nothing, 
to establish the existence of any god, except what nature alone reveals, 
because in revealing god to any human conception, his counterpart or 
the devil must also be as plainly revealed, and also be allowed to assume 
personality, eternity, infinity, and every other attribute, that you ascribe 
to deity, and have theology in reference to him definite and 
intricate as you have in reference to his counterpart, for they are 
alike associated in opposition to each other, and are in eternal conflict, 
and undetermined supremacy, and they occupy equal prominence in all 
human experience, as delineated in history, and also in pretended revela- 
tion, and can never be separated in individual, or in national experience. 
In order to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, as to whether theology as 
such, or by itself alone is a science, or only speculative absurdity, it is of 
the first importance to understand what we mean by science, when used 
in connection with religion, for it is nothing short anywhere of absolute, 
or undoubted certain true knowledge, in its purest form, and it is there- 
fore clear, that theology can never even claim to be more than probable 
in any of its aspects, or pretensions, for it is clearly nothing but a mere 
speculative absurdity, instead of a true science, so that it is no wonder 
that uniformity is as far from being reached after the controversies of 
nearly two thousand years, as it was at the first attempt to introduce it 
to refute paganism; and it must always so remain, for it is only a few 
specialists, who are of a peculiar mental structure, who ever e en attempt 
to write about or to teach theology, and those who are instructed in 
the most thorough course of four years' discipline, are only thereby 
provided with an expensive and useless weapon, with which they hope 
to defend their statements, when such statements are attacked by minds 
uneducated in theology, but who, instead, have the gift of reason, to 
perceive that truth is independent of either theology or science, and 
must, be discovered by the reason alone, for the natural theology which 
the naturalist or materialist receives directly, comes from the works or 
manifestations of natural phenomenon, and science has reached in many 
directions to demonstration, and in many others to a more advanced 
position than probability, but still short of certainty, .so that reason is 
holding judgment in suspense, till demonstration is reached. 

No such process is had by comparative theology, for it receives as 
truth, what the reason refuses to admit, and thus so far subordinates 



86 The Skeptic's Defense. 

reason to revelation, that, where it is in conflict, reason is never allowed 
to prevail, to question or doubt revelation, even where miracles are 
recorded, which reason always rejects when not silenced by fear, which 
fear is the direct result of false instruction. It always has been one of 
the most deplorable conditions of universal humanity,^ that it has been 
tyranized by a set of vile, religious impostors, whose chief business has 
been, to prevent the spread of scientific knowledge among one another, 
as well as among the people, and while the priests shamelessly boast of 
great progress which Christianity has enabled those nations to make, 
who have assumed the name of Christian,this boast is always unfounded 
and untrue, and the exact reverse .is true, for the ecclesiastical authority, 
was at the outset of the consolidated and thoroughly organized Christ- 
ian body called the church, so tenacious of its authority, and watchful 
over its dupes, that no conflicting idea, that in the most distant manner 
could be construed to weaken the hold the priests had secured on the 
people, hence men who in addition to their seeming devotion to relig- 
ious matters, were naturally inclined to pursue investigations into nat- 
ural phenomenon, and find some satisfactory explanation of observed 
natural operations, and such inquiries resulted in modifying their belief, 
to the extent of doubt as to the veracity of the teaching of the priest- 
hood, but if so, he was quickly silenced and made to abandon his 
investigations, or be himself destroyed, as well as all his writings; and 
all progress in learning other than such as the monks imparted, was 
sternly and strictly forbidden, for many hundred years, thus entirely 
preventing any advance in science of any kind, which did not reach its 
climax till the fifteenth century, when the inquisition, which was but a 
continuation and expansion of a similar endeavor and determination of 
the church authorities of the Latin or Romish church, to produce abso- 
lute uniformity of belief, which first began operations in this direction in 
the twelfth century, when the Albigensian heresy was stamped out, by 
the most vigorous persecution, accompanied by much torture and 
slaughter, for heresy, or, daring to adopt a different way of explaining 
scripture. This monstrous, diabolical, religious and Christian deviltry, 
received the meek and inoffensive name of Holy Office, and innocently 
pretended in the outset, that it only proposed to make a mere inquiry, 
into a suspected case, with a view to discover, and correct, or eliminate 
error, so as to restore the wayward, and thus prevent apostacy, merely 
for the benefit of the individual suspected, when its real purpose was, 
as it was afterwards disclosed and made plainly evident, to so terrorize 
by their atrocities, sanguinary and bloody methods, every species of 
heresy or deviation from prescribed standards, that no person, whether 
high or low, would dare to differ with any monstrous tyrany the church 



The Introduction of the Inquisition. 87 

might decree to exercise, when reinforced by the civil power. 
Any one can learn by referring to secular, as also to church 
history that the inquisition as it appeared in the fifteenth century, about 
fourteen hundred and eighty, was a gradual development, whose aim 
and ultimate object was, to not only compel uniformity of belief, by 
those who were or who professed to be Christians, but also to compel 
the Jews, or Moors, or Mahometans, to adopt Christianity, with the 
alternative of doing so, or be exterminated or driven from their homes, 
and have their property confiscated, besides compulsory torture jn case 
of their neglect or refusal to embrace Christianity, and the secular 
power was used, in connection with the church, to do this devilish work 
on a large scale, as will appear before this description is completed, and 
no page of the most savage and degraded race, whose history was ever 
written, can be found, that will for a moment compare in atrocious 
villany, with those on which is written the diabolical, devilish history of 
this inquisition, or Holy Office, as it existed in the last twenty years of 
the fifteenth century, when the genuine, simon pure, unadulterated 
Christian, had both the power and the hellish disposition to act out what 
was in him, at least, partially, which was a determination to compel, if 
possible, all the world to be governed by this tyranical priesthood or 
perish. 

This first attempt miscarried, or was but partly successful, but such 
an enterprize and determination has never been abandoned, and will be 
renewed on a large scale, when what has so far been done will appear 
insignificant, when the favorable time comes, which is impatiently waited 
for, and eagerly expected by that devilish, corrupt, unholy organization, 
the Roman Catholic Christian Church, who are now as hopeful and con- 
fident of final victory as they ever were. When that most infernal Christ- 
ian Spanish villain, Thomas of Torquemada, took the office of inquisitor 
general, from that other and greater infernal villain, Pope Sixtus, the 
fourth, he proceeded to fully organize the methods, by which the results 
he and his devilish associates expected were to be secured, for the 
scheme was to proceed in at least an outwardly, lawful manner. Two 
eminent lawyers were secured as assessors, and these to act as counsel- 
lors, but practice soon demonstrated that this insignificant scheme was 
far too small, for so magnificent a system of robbery and plunder, as 
well as murder, as was by these holy fiends contemplated, for it must 
not be lost sight of, that this wretched villainous scheme, was concocted 
and put into operation by the highest dignitaries, such as Pope and Car- 
dinals, and when this discovery was made, a reorganization was had, 
which then included a central court, composed of the grand inquisitor 
general, six apostolic counsellors, a fiscal procurator, three secretaries, 



88 The Skeptic's Defense. 

a head or chief policeman, one treasurer, four servants to wait on the 
court, two reporters or informers, and as many counsellors as might 
be found needful, after this complicated religious machinery was put 
into operation. 

Besides this central court at Rome, where this august tribunal was 
to be located, four others of like proportions, called local tribunals were 
organized. All these officials were to be well paid out of the confisca- 
tion fund, which was a stream of wealth, that was never to be permitted 
to run dry, or even to diminish its abundant flow, from this unholy 
source so named, and considered by these holy robbers. The crowned 
head, or chief holy devil, Ferdinand, king of Spain, and the she devil, 
Isabella, the queen, were to have the largest share of the spoils, and 
Rome, or the church was to have the rest of the plunder. This nest of 
holy robbers and murderers, next proceeded to make rules, which, con- 
sisted of thirty-nine articles or divisions, which made the code of laws or 
regulations on which this meek, innocent, harmless holy office, were to 
proceed and did proceed, in short order in fact there was no interrup- 
tion, while this change was being made. From section one to ten was 
the summons, or warning to the heretics, which included all not enrolled 
as Christians, in good standing or unsuspected; from section eleven to 
thirteen, had reference to penitents who were in prisons, waiting for tor- 
ture, with a view to extort recantation of heresy, or to compel accepta- 
tion of Christianity by the Jews, and Mahometans, who were then in 
Spain, in vast numbers, who, as before stated, were offered this alterna- 
tive or extermination and confiscation. Sections fourteen to nineteen, 
described the form of trial including torture ; sections twenty and twenty- 
one, established jurisdiction over the wealth of dead heretics and living 
nobles, and their vassals or servants. The remaining eighteen sections 
related to such unforseen details as might be required, when this compli- 
cated machinery, emanating from this corrupt nest of holy inventors 
and constructors was put into actual operation. When this infernal 
scheme, the concoction, or invention of the Holy Office, was published, 
and put into circulation, so that those immediately concerned were 
aware of its nature and requirements, all who came within its description 
or designation, were terrorized, and why should they not be. 

A body or jury, a hundred in number, who were drawn from vari- 
ous monasteries, and were selected on account of their eminence, or 
reliability to convict those who were brought before them, sat as judges 
to decide the fate of such culprits as were brought before them, for pre- 
liminary examination, to ascertain whether there was sufficient reason 
for interference, which in nearly every case there was found to be. 
They were then examined, and also all the informers and witnesses, with- 



Description of the Inquisition Continued. 8^ 

out the accused having any counsel, every suspicious circumstance, 
which holy zeal could rake together was drawn out, and submitted to 
this body or jury of monastic theologians, called the Qualifiers of the 
holy office, whose characters were involved, so that they must invariably 
decide again the accused, or their own orthodoxy would be suspected. 
As soon as their decision against the accused was given, he was at once 
removed to the sacred prison of the holy office, when all communica- 
tion with the outer world was cut off. Next came to him the holy con- 
fessors, to if possible wring a confession out of him, giving him three 
separate audiences, or opportunities of recantation, so that he might be, 
if so disposed, included among the penitents, if, however, he prove 
obstinate or firm in his refusal to recant, or to embrace Christianity, as 
the case might be, the first charge was renewed and torture was ordered, 
whose object was to extort a confession or acceptance, as the case 
might be, by the most ingenious and horrible instruments of torture, 
the world has ever been able to contrive, and which it is absolutely 
impossible to exaggerate. After this holy sport had been indulged in to 
the verge between life and death of the victim, his shattered body, and 
relatively shattered mind, was carried into the audience chamber, and 
called on to answer to the charges, which were now read to him by a 
holy monk for the first time. He was then next asked whether he desired 
to make any defence, if he did, he had to choose a lawyer from the list 
of those employed by his accusers, so that any such a defence was a 
mere mockery, and nearly always resulted in a conviction ; when the vic- 
tim was immediately remanded to prison in most cases for many months, 
waiting for sentence, or for rich relatives or friends to ransom him, at a 
fearful cost. If no such ransom was made, then the imprisoned victim 
was brought for sentence, before these holy Qualifiers, from which he 
might make, if he could produce a sufficient sum of money, a useless 
appeal from the local tribunal, to the supreme central one at Rome, if 
money was sent in advance in sufficient abundance to pay the price, 
because the papal treasury expected, not without reason, to realize an 
enormous sum by these useless appeals, and by this process, the inquisi- 
tion also got all the victim's property by confiscation, and the pope got 
a large share of the wealth of his friends, by listening to the appeal, 
which as before stated, was unsuccessful, except in very rare cases. 

When, however, an acquittal was thus secured, the accused were 
permitted to slink home, without redress or recompense, for his unjust 
imprisonment, or for the agony inseparable from such a trial, and cruel 
torture. On the other hand, if convicted, the victim was made the 
center of an auto da fe, or jollification, by these Holy Office authorities, 
who decked him out in a condemned man's robe, and after sufficient 



90 The Skeptic's Defense. 

hilarity to satisfy these holy loafers had been indulged in, they all pro- 
ceeded to the place of execution, when for the first time his sentence 
was read to him, and the choice given him, either to be reconciled to the 
church, and submit to the penances they prescribe, which were little 
short of death, or be handed over to the secular arm for burning, for, 
the Holy Office, shed no blood only indirectly, and the secular arm to 
which was attached the bodies of the two chief devils of this holy gang, 
the King Ferdinand, and Queen Isabella,of Spain, who with their 
devilish holy successors, have put to death, after the most previous 
unmerciful torture, from the date of fourteen hundred and eighty-four, 
to the date of eighteen hundred and nine, by the holy merciful way of 
execution, known as burning alive at the stake in public, the vast num- 
ber which would be incredible if it could not be in the most satisfactory 
manner proved by history, of thirty-one thousand nine hundred and 
twelve. In effigy, or an imitation, who represented those who recanted 
after torture, imprisonment, and confiscation of their property, which 
was not enough, the holy sharks must humiliate them still further, by 
burning in a public place an imitation or wax representation of this 
person who recanted, or accepted Christianity, from among the Jews, or 
Mahometans, to avoid exile from thir homes, and friends, seventeen 
thousand, six hundred and fifty-nine. Those who were merely impris- 
oned for life, after undergoing torture, imprisonment and confiscation, 
as penitents, who were compelled to endure such privations and humilia- 
tions, that mere life was of little value, were two hundred and ninety-one 
thousand, four hundred and fifty, making in all the vast aggregate of 
three hundred and forty-one thousand, and twenty-one, who were thus 
disposed of in Spain alone, in consequence of not being willing, or able 
to see the logical speculation and absurdity, as these ungodly tyrants of 
the mind, who have always ruled the Christian church, as they pre- 
tended they saw it, and this stupendous fact must be kept in mind, that 
these holy murders, perpetrated by such infamous means, include some 
of the best individuals of both sexes, who have ever lived on earth. But 
ghastly and incredible as this chapter of horrors is, it is not yet a tenth 
part of the whole, for no country except Spain, ever kept any record of 
these damnable proceedings, which in Portugal and Fr ; ance,were on the 
same scale of horrible atrocity, and on a smaller scale, yet horrible 
enough to sicken the historian. England, Germany, and other Euro- 
pean countries, have all felt the unmerciful infliction of cruelty, by which 
the holy church has been able to strengthen, and continue its horrible 
impositions. 

Another horrible record is yet to be added to the one above 
described, which while not so revolting in some of its aspects, is still 



Skeptics May Take a Little Courage. 91 

odious enough to forever damn, the whole Christian church, if this alone 
was all the crimes of which it is guilty, and make it unworthy to exist a 
moment longer. In the year fourteen hundred and ninety-two, the 
same year that Columbus discovered America, which is four hundred 
years ago, the same holy Ferdinand, and his Queen Isabella, for she 
must be included, as she was the real king, expelled a vast number of 
Jews and Mahometans from Spain, and confiscated all their property, 
and sent them wandering in enormous crowds of paupers, on all the 
shores of the Mediterranean sea, carrying the plague, as well as starva- 
tion, and every kind of misery, in their train. A few years later, another 
exodus of Moors or Mahometans, who had ventured to come into 
Spain in ignorance of the edict for their expulsion, took place. The 
order was promulgated, for them either to leave the country, or embrace 
Christianity. A small part of them were Christianized or pretended to 
be, but after suffering an untold, horrible persecution during the six- 
teenth century, they were finally in the year sixteen hundred and nine, 
all excelled, so that from Spain alone, there was sent off over three 
millions, of the wealthiest and most intelligent inhabitants, entailing a 
loss in trade, agriculture and manufactures incalculable, and reducing 
the copulation of Spain over four millions, all to gratify a mere handful 
of fanatics, who had the impudence to call themselves Christians, but 
were not so in any sense but the name. 

The advance made in learning, in the last two hundred years, in spite 
of the determined and persistent opposition of the highest church 
authorities, has gradually destroyed the power for evil of the inquisition, 
and so crippled its administration, that it has not dared to do more 
than desire to exterminate heresy, but the same ancient, intolerant, fanat- 
ical spirit, the most hateful of any that is possessed by any class of the 
human race, still animates all Christians in their highest ecclesiastical 
authorities, whatever their designation, and when the human race is 
rid of them, and of every other kind of religious humbug and deception, 
a great advance in every direction will soon be perceptible, but when we 
consider what an enormous aggregation, fanaticism, ignorance and 
superstition is yet concentrated in every species of religious humbug, 
how firmly and cunningly they are organized and disciplined, by the 
most able and shrewd rascals called priests, to be found in any of the 
learned professions, who are banded together for self-defence and self- 
protection, whose whole study is, how to make this imposition, perpet- 
ual, little hope can be indulged in that much change will be perceptible 
in the next century, but still on looking back a hundred years, and com- 
paring the position the church then occupied, and the abhorrent doc- 
trines that were then boldly preached, and what intolerable theological 



92 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tenets were taught, and how firm the Bible was on all hands, then sup- 
posed to stand, on the firm rock of inspired revelation, a hundred years 
ago, and then comparing the timidity and hesitancy of the priests, to 
publicly, even allude to many of such doctrines as were considered nec- 
cessary to be upheld and enforced, such as the atonement, endless hell 
fire for the damned, election or predestination, infant damnation, and 
many other like these, which no priest dare even mention, and giving 
the skeptic the credit, he is entitled to, as being the main cause of this 
change, and also when we consider that it is the tendency of the human 
intellect to go to the opposite extreme, when doubt takes the place 
where faith once stood, and it forbade doubt to as much as find or 
search for a weak spot in or by which to operate, there is abundant rea- 
son to expect, that the progress of infidelity, will increase; especially as 
the foundation of inspired revelation is fast growing weaker, and must 
soon entirely sink in the quick sands on which it stands, and if this 
imperfect writing shall fall into the hands of any person, to aid such 
result, my reward is sufficient. 

Nothing has been disclosed thus far in the partial delineation of 
some, only of the horrors of the inquisition, for the reality far exceeds 
any power of language to describe, about the immense slaughter by an 
infuriated mob of holy Christians, who, by direction of the Holy Office, 
deliberately planned and perpetrated the sanguinary scenes ^pf St. Bar- 
tholomew's day in France, when more than ten thousand, as good men 
and women, and as good Christians as those were by whom these were 
murdered, had to die for the mere want of uniformity of religious belief, 
and hundreds of thousands have been driven from homes and country, 
simply, to, by that holy process, produce uniformity or unquestioned 
acquiescence in any scheme of robbery and villany the Christian hier- 
archy choose to adopt, such as selling indulgences, or license to tHose 
who had plenty of money, and plenty of desire to ravish 1 female virtue 
and chastity, or any other species of drunken debauchery that such rich 
vagabonds could desire to perpetrate, and this money so assessed and 
collected, was added to the other enormous sums, to swell the treasuries 
of the church, and to terrify the wavering and make it so dangerous to 
doubt, or question any monstrous iniquity the highest ecclesiastical 
authority thought proper to authorize. Those who ordered this out- 
rage, and many other like this, but not on so large a scale, took also the 
wealth of these slaughtered victims, to pay for the trouble of exterminat- 
ing them, as well as of those who they drove into exile, and this process 
has been till quite lately the main reliance of the Holy Roman Catholic 
church in all its history, and the chief source of its enormous wealth. 

In speaking or writing about any system that has so wide a scope 



The Greek and Roman Catholic Compared. 93 

and so many ramifications as Christianity has, it is necessary to dis- 
tinguish and separate to some extent one branch from another. What 
has preceded in this book has had reference to those, the most familiarly 
known, as the two great divisions, called Romanism and Protestant- 
ism. The Greek division has scarcely been referred to, but it must not 
be overlooked, for it, like its twin humbug, Romanism, is a large, pow- 
erful imposition, perhaps not so widely distributed, but not so intimately 
associated with Protestantism, as Romanism is, for it never had as many 
horrible attrocious outrageous features, such as the Spanish inquisition, 
Jesuitism, and that infernal contrivance, the sale of indulgences, which 
has made Romanism so odious in the estimation of universal humanity. 
It never had any pope to whom infallibility was ascribed, or a celibate 
priesthood to make the creation of nunneries a positive necessity, but 
their priests, like the people at large, had both wives and legitimate 
children, and none of the disclosures of obscene immorality that have 
been made by escaped nuns, to the outside world, causing the forma- 
tion of such political combinations, as know nothings, or the A. P. A. 
have ever been known among the Greek Christians, and it must be 
admitted that if Romanism had not been both charged and proved to 
have been guilty of these enormous vices, she would never have been 
disrupted by the so-called reformation, but would have, instead, been 
able to so reconcile the unimportant theological disputes that originally 
caused the separation as to become again united, but Romanism is as 
hateful to the Greek as Islamism is, and for the same reason a fixed 
determination of the Roman church to never yield any of its abominable 
pretensions or practices in remote times, and up to the time when 
" Vladimir," the first Russian ruler, who had embraced Christianity, 
introduced it into that country in the Greek form. The aboriginal 
" Finns " were supplied with a form very simple, and satisfactory, which 
in time they, partly from choice, and chiefly by compulsion, abandoned 
for the present form, and which has become national. They could not 
distinguish between religion and magic rites, and had never been taught 
that other religions were less true than their own. This was an imper- 
ceptible mixture of paganism and Christianity, and to show a specimen 
of their simplicity and candor one of their prayers is inserted. 

" Look here, O, Nicholas, God, perhaps my neighbor, Michael has 
been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does don't 
believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a 
worthless boaster, and babbler. He does not really honor you, and 
merely plays the hypocrite, but I honor you from my heart, and behold 
I place a taper before you." Was there ever constructed a more simple 
and satisfactory prayer than this, by the most gifted expert, each like 
the other wholly worthless and vain? 



94 The Skeptic's Defense. 

The people of this land of liberty, and universal intelligence, or the 
means to become intelligent, can have but a faint conception of the 
people of Russia, whose condition is directly the reverse in these 
respects. This country is the home, and its sovereign the head of the 
Greek church, in the same sense as Turkey and its sovereign is of the 
Mahometan or Islamism. After various experiments were tried to 
keep the church supplied with priests, it was found that the Jewish plan 
of recruiting priests from the sons of priests was the most feasible and 
satisfactory, and for many hundred years it has been in operation, and 
has resulted in degrading the priestly office to such an extent, that on 
account of the excess of supply beyond the demand, by reason of the 
law forbidding the sons of priests entering any other calling, so that in 
time a priestly caste was developed. This caste so increased in num- 
bers by the process of reproduction, that the supply of priests and dea- 
cons far exceeded the demand, and every year this disproportion became 
greater and greater, so that a large company of priests were always out 
of situations, and they gravitated towards the large towns, in hopes of 
being hired to officiate in the private chapels of the rich nobles, who 
sent out their servants to hire them, and such was the competition for 
employment, and such the extremity of their poverty, that only those 
who were the most fortunate were able to secure these situations, and 
the result of this system has been, and still is to curse the nation by 
obliging them to receive their religious instruction from an ignorant 
set of boobies, whose only qualification to instruct is the consecration 
by a bishop nearly as ignorant, and stupified as themselves, hence the 
ceremonials were all that were insisted on as of consequence, such as 
Easter and the fasts of Lent, and numerous others, including three weeks 
in June, from the first of November till Christmas, and on all Wednes- 
days and Fridays of the year, and they teach their dupes, that in making 
the sign of the cross, they can only use the two first fingers of the right 
hand, and not add the thumb, for that would indicate a belief in the 
holy ghost, making the trinity, which, on no account must be included 
in the creed. It is perhaps proper to notice that on this trinity doctrine 
there was a division, which developed so as to cause an extensive schism 
in the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, near the close of the 
17th century. This division has never been healed, so that dissenters 
are nearly as odious to the orthodox Greeks as the Protestant dissenters 
were and are to the Roman or Latin church. 

The enormous wickedness that has been above recorded, and which 
can all be proved by history, and twice as much more besides this in 
reference to the Christian church as an organization, while it largely 
applies to that branch called Roman Catholic, and to that chiefly 



The Origin of Sunday Laws Explained. 95 

before the reformation inaugurated by the reformer Luther and his 
associates and successors, who are all the bitter enemies of that mother 
church does not include, as has been stated, a tenth, or a hundredth part 
of the known corruption and rascality, of that wretchedly, ungodly nest 
of vile scoundrels of the various three hundred popes, who, one after 
another have sat in the chair of St. Peter at Rome, down through all 
grades of priests, till the ignorant, and for the greater part of honest 
and unsuspecting dupes of these designing, infamous devils in human 
form are reached. These infamous hypocrites justify their ungodly 
acts of robbery and deception, on the ground of necessitv and a disin- 
terested anxiety for not only their spiritual welfare, but also as an aux- 
iliary of the civil power, as an assistant in preventing the commission of 
crime, and preventing poverty, so as to cause the lower orders to con- 
form to such regulations as the governing class think proper to pro- 
mulgate. While it may be conceded that some credit should be allowed 
to such an unworthy motive, and some good result can in some coun- 
tries be shown to modify, and partially excuse the abominable lying 
stories and deceptions told by the priests of every variety, with a direct 
design, and also intention, to create a superstitious reverence and an 
exaggerated estimate of the importance of such instructions as these 
priests choose to, and do, from time to time impart, it is not admitted 
that on the whole, or in the aggregate, the benefit is anywhere near suffi- 
cient to offset the cost of maintaining such an enormous expense as the 
institution of any form of religion makes necessary, even when it 
comes to any community in the most simple and inexpensive manner; 
but it is seldom that such a fortunate train of circumstances is met 
with, for the poor, and those most in need of instruction, are for such a 
reason deprived of any benefit that the priest considers, he confers on 
such as can afford to sit within the church to whom he officiates. 

In a free country like America, every important question is apt to be 
discussed and the discussion is continued till the question is disposed of 
either by the majority, who, on its ripening into proposed legal enact- 
ment, putting it on the statute book and compelling obedience to it or 
in its abandonment, as of not sufficient consequence to be worthy of 
such a place. The priests of former times, in this free country's history, 
neglected to put god into the national constitution, which was chiefly 
made by Jefferson, acting under the direction of Washington, Franklin 
and Tom Paine, a quartette of as rank infidels as were then to be found 
on earth. So to make amends for this oversight, the priests and theo- 
logians said one to another, " Go to "' let us while we may enact some 
Sunday laws to compel, if necessary, the infidel minority to observe our 
Sunday, whether they will or not, and many other laws forbidding recre- 



96 The Skeptic's Defense. 

aticn and taxing property for the support of the priests, and others like 
these. These now considered obnoxious laws were all made before any 
emigration to this country had begun, except such as was caused by 
religious persecution, but now that foreign emigrants, of the free think- 
ing variety, are finding the Sunday laws too restraining, and the dispo- 
sition of the religious fanatics and priests is resolute to enforce these 
laws so as materially to interfere with the carrying out the customs of 
the country from which these emigrants departed, a determination is 
nearly reached to cause, if not the repeal, a suitable modification to 
relieve them from their most objectionable features. 

A wise course for the priest and fanatic would be a compromise or a 
disposition to be moderate in their censure and lax to enforce laws 
found to be obnoxious to citizens in all respects their equals, and if this 
course is not taken by them, an unconditional repeal of them will no 
doubt result. When the priest looks about him to find any competent 
authority to give him a right to have any Sunday at all, he can find 
none any better than what is derived from another priest of a long past 
age, no better, if as good, as himself. The truth is, and the priests all 
know it, that the ten commandments found in the 20th chapter of Exo- 
dus, instead of being of divine origin, are only an invention (for a pur- 
pose) of the priests of the Israelites, who, both priests and people were 
scarcely above the barbarous stage of civilization, and however salutary 
or beneficial some of them may be conceded to be, to restrain the pas- 
sions of such a rude people, they do not, of necessity apply to another 
people in another stage of civilization. 

A day of rest to be periodically observed by all is only a specious 
humbug, and the reason given for its compulsory observance because 
" God rested," is the most stupid humbug of all, and the author of this 
reason, whoever it was, whether Moses, or any other, discovered his 
mistake, and in another statement further along, corrected his blunder, 
and gave as a reason why they should keep the Sabbath, that, " because 
01 that day ye were delivered out of the hands of the Egyptians.' 7 
Neither reason ever had any importance, and the whole contrivance 
was for the purpose of giving the priests the opportunity to gather them 
in companies, to strengthen and perpetuate their infernal imposition by 
further additions to it, as circumstances might arise to make further 
imposition necessary. The mere change of day to be observed is of no 
importance, and like the others, has no value in any sense, but a mere 
ethical value to some individuals. In properly organized society no 
rest but such as night is intended to secure, and does secure when used 
for that purpose is required, but in all cases there is too much enforced 
rest to a portion, who would be glad to work on the one hand, and too 



Why Tom Payne is Hated by Priests. 97 

much ambition to overwork on the other, to make any system of period- 
ical rest, either desirable or possible, and when Sunday is abolished, 
the priests' vocation, as such, is gone, and with it the golden stream is 
dried up, and humanity applauds. 

While I am generous enough to concede that some of the ministers 
of our day and generation, are actuated by a mixed motive to do some 
good in return for the salary they receive, this concession only includes 
the younger and less experienced, who have not yet discovered the trick 
that has been played upon them ever since they were born, instructing 
them falsely, when impressible, and continuing the process to mature 
life, all others are contemptible .hypocrites, and frauds, whose income is 
procured by no process better than actual stealing. These are the ones 
I am after, because the good they claim to do is immensely over-esti- 
mated, and the harm they do is by the average dupe, entirely over- 
looked. It is nothing less than an unspeakable, unthinkable outrage, 
to teach any immature mind any form or degree of superstition, from 
any source, either human or divine, and as supernaturalism is the 
greatest part of the instruction of all the priesthood, their influence for 
evil can never be over-estimated. Therefore I say abolish Sunday and 
all other so-called sacred days, such as Christmas, Lent fast days, and 
the like; transform the buildings called churches and temples into school 
houses and hospitals, and reduce the Bible, as Ingersoll proposes, to the 
work of mere man, and relieve god from the disagreeable reputation he 
has been obliged to submit to, by being caricatured as he is in this 
divine work, of which he has been accused of being author, by these 
priests, for a purpose diabolical and devilish. 

I want to put on record some thoughts about the capacity of the 
average priest, to appreciate what has been done by the infidel, to both 
construct and put into operation the only system of government that is 
fL to survive. If " Tom Payne," as the priests call him, in derision, had 
never wrote his pamphlet entitled " Common Sense," it is very likely 
that Thomas Jefferson would never have been able to develope the form 
of free government, under which we live, and if he had never wrote his 
book, " The Age of Reason," neither Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, 
and many other able men like them, would never have been able to 
emerge from the darkness of puritanical superstition, with which they 
had been in their infancy poisoned. Payne was S host, not only as it 
related to civil government, but in. his ability to cope with theologians, 
and destroy their flimsy webs, and the animosity of the priests of his 
day has been 'inherited, till at the present day, all his printed works are 
committed to the flames as fast as any priest can find one, and no popu- 
lar book store dare permit one of his works to soil their shelves, and it 



98 The Skeptic's Defense. 

is very rare that the most diligent search can succeed in finding one. 
You can find the Pilgrims' Progress, Paradise Lost, Bunyan's Life, 
the Shepherds of Salisbury Plain, and such like, in any quantity, for 
these have the sanction and patronage of the priest, and their tendency 
is to strengthen his position and perpetuate his infernal imposition. 

Some 200 years ago, Jefferson had a son of mature age, to whom 
he wrote a series of letters. After they were both dead, some of their, 
successors gathered these letters and printed them, and in some old 
libraries can be found these four volumes. Many years ago the writer 
of these pages, found in one of these letters, this advice : " I advise you 
to read the Bible much, I myself have # always done so. I advise you 
to be divested of prejudice, and when you come to any such a passage 
as is recorded in the book of Joshua, where the sun and moon obeyed 
his command and stood still, put your reasoning faculties at work, and 
estimate the consequence that would have ensued if that statement was 
true. From what you know of astronomy, and the motion of the 
bodies connected with the solar system, the earth revolving then as now, 
a thousand miles an hour, estimate what would be the consequence of 
a sudden stop. If you can believd it would cause no disaster such as 
the total annihilation not only of both armies who were contending for 
supremacy, and required more time to come to a decision, and got it in 
this way, and not only that, but a destruction of the whole solar system. 
I say you have a perfect right to do so. I have tried that experiment, 
and I can't believe it, but that is no guide for you." Jefferson had not 
only read Tom Payne's books, but had very intimate associations with 
so learned a gentleman as Payne was, and the result was he learned to 
use his reason. I at that time of reading these Jefferson letters, and 
afterwards " Common Sense," and the " Age of Reason," by Payne, 
began to wake up and use my own reason, that had lain not only dor- 
mant, but paralyzed, and I soon found that reason and revelation were 
not in harmony. 

Perhaps some 200 years after the hand that write these lines about 
reason, has crumbled to dust, some person who is uncertain what road 
to follow, these feeble lines will cause him to reach a decision. Jef- 
ferson had no thought of his letters being printed, and they were not in 
his life time, but I mean to print what I write, for unless I do, I am sure 
it will never be printed,, but when printed and distributed, destruction 
will be impossible to the extent of annihilation. My fate at the end of 
my earthly life will be similar to that of Payne, who was buried without 
the intervention of any priest, very likely at his own request, and as hib 
family was too poor 1 to more than mark the spot, by the most simple 
symbol, 200 years intervened before his free thinking successors were 



Further Criticism of the Bible. 99 

numerous enough and opulent enough to erect a suitable costly monu- 
ment/that now adorns the spot where his remains were deposited, and 
his fame will never die while any lover of liberty lives to keep it green. 
On one side of this monument is inscribed a stanza composed by a negro 
who was left behind to fill the grave. " A genuine literary gem." 
" Poor Tom Payne, here he lies, 
Nobody laughs, and nobody cries; 
Where he has gone, and how he fares, 
Nobody knows, and nobody cares."* 

At this point a diversion is required to give a definition of the Bible 
more distinct than can otherwise be given in such a work as this, of 
what the author regards as due the reader. The Bible, or as the 
word means sacred book, upon which any form of religious belief is 
founded, and to which its propagators and teachers resort, to sustain 
their assumptions and enforce their claim to credibility and authority 
is of such prime importance to the succcess of the effort to establish 
such form, that no doubt or question as to its divine origin or authorship 
is, or can be admissible, hence a supernatural, improbable and abso- 
lutely impossible combination of events that become necessary to invent 
to clothe or involve this sacred book with the necessary amount of 
mystery and absurdity so as to cause it to be wholly unintelligible to the 
comprehension of any person, except the few impostors who begin any 
given imposition, and who invariably cause such explanations to be 
received and adopted, as are or seem to them to be the most likely to be 
successful and permanent, and others who in turn become their success- 
ors, add from time to time, as circumstances seem to require or allow, 
other impositions, and enforce them in the same manner. The Bible of 
the Christian form of religion partakes of the above described character- 
istics to such an extent as to make it wholly and totally worthless as a 
guide to human conduct, and in many of its teachings, if a literal con- 
struction is given to the language it is absolutely vile and pernicious, 
and its representative heroes and examples of piety and virtue are 
unworthy of imitation ; none of its moral teachings are either new or in 
any sense superior to those of some others as the Jew or the Mahometan 

*Note. — Tradition asserts that when the sexton of the cemetery placed the remains 
in the grave, and the bearers had retired, an Irishman and an negro were left to fill the 
grave. The negro said : " 'Tis too bad to cover up such a man as this without anything 
being said. You say something." The Irishman declined, as he was a good Catholic, 
and had no gifts of that kind. " You say something.' 1 The negro leaned on his shovel 
and looked into the open grave, and with no chance at preparation, said " Something." 
No poet of ancient or modern times ever constructed so rich a poem in so few words, 
with all the preparation that time can give. 



100 The Skeptic's Defense. 

or even the Mormon, but as long as its inventors and their confederates, 
the priesthood of all grades are united in their determination to oppose 
the least sign of hesitation or doubt either as to the divine source from 
which it was derived, or to its supernatural teachings and sublime char- 
acter of its authors, and can succeed to silence any and all who are bold 
and honest enough to reveal the true nature of both its contents, and 
the source from which it undoubtedly was derived, and that a human 
source only, just so long and no longer, will it retain its hold on the 
dupes who have in the past relied upon its teachings, as both valuable 
and necessary, as a preparation for a life beyond the present The most 
vigorous and determined and presumably to the friends of the Bible as 
divine dangerous warfare on the integrity of the Bible is now in 
progress, and the ability and number of the great scholars who 
have taken the field of controversy and display both ability and energy 
in assailing it so as to weaken its force and value, as a' reliable source 
from which to derive any valuable information connected with the great 
question of a future life, and also as a foundation on' which to found 
and build a system so complex and impracticable as is that of the 
Christian, who never had any bette r ground than assumption, is won- 
derful and encouraging to skeptics. 

The origin of the book, commonly called the Bible, is enveloped in 
so much mystery, and so many contradictory theories are held by those 
who use it as a basis for their religious belief, that no reliance can be 
placed on the authorship, or the time when the fragmentary parts, 
which together make the volume, were written. Different and equally 
able investigators and commentators have assigned so many different 
theories, on both of these questions, about which no dispute or question 
ought ever to have been possible, that no reliance can be placed on 
either, or all of them, and the whole question is still unsettled, except 
as it is announced by the Jews, and they not being disputed have fixed 
the date when they, as a nation began to reckon time, and how long 
that was before they became a nation, when the world was created and 
the human race started with other animals in the struggle for existence, 
and the Christian being a sort of mongrel Jew and pagan, have accepted 
their computation of time, and in addition to that, have fixed a date 
when they, as Christian nations had a beginning. Pagan, or as we say 
heathen nations, also begin their national eras in the remote past, far 
previous to the Jew. The Mahometan also rejects all others, and 
begins his national era when Mahomet was obliged in order to avoid 
destruction, to abandon Mecca, and flee to Medina, and this movement 
is called the " Hegira." The Mormon has not yet become sufficiently 
strcng and numerous enough to fix a date for a separate national 
existence, and are still in a state of development with as good prospect 



Why Was Any Revelation Necessary. 101 

c.f success as any of the others had in the same space of time, from 
their weak origin, to fully developed religious systems. There is con- 
sequently no reason why we should care to inquire definitely about any 
of these matters, but the easiest way out of these difficulties is to have 
sufficient faith to accept what is held by common consent as the nearest 
approach to the exact truth that it is possible to obtain, and let the same 
uncertainty remain as it has for thousands of years. 

However, none of these expositors of any or all these so-called 
sacred writings even pretend that any of these have ever been made 
known to any portion of the human race, except the Jews, in the lan- 
guage in which it was at first revealed to these unknown writers, but 
the perhapses, the may bes, the ifs, the ands, the wherefores, and 
guesses on all subjects are resorted to so to, if possible, harmonize 
the conflicting statements of these pretended revelations with the known 
facts of science, which has succeeded in establishing, beyond any further 
possibility of doubt, that all these pretended revelations are of no 
account whatever, and are absolutely false, and further none of these 
unfounded statements, such as the creation, the fall of the first human 
pair, the legend of the garden of Eden, the flood, the tower of Babel, 
giving the origin of various languages, so as to interfere with its com- 
pletion, the giving of the law, and all this mass of absurdity, finds any 
support in profane or secular history, therefore gives no room on which 
to found the least reliance. The whole necessity or object of any rev- 
elation presupposes that a great and important necessity existed, that 
this small and insignificant spot of the universe, called by astronomers 
the earth, which is but a grain of sand when compared with the visible 
universe, to say nothing of the invisible, which yet only partially fill 
space, was of such vast importance as to justify the creator of all things 
to so far compromise his dignity as to condescend to communicate the 
precise information as to the proper course for his creatures to pursue, 
to make happiness possible in this life, to the few miserable human 
beings, who had their habitation on this earth, and also to reveal their 
destiny in a future life of which nothing is said in this revelation is pre- 
suming too much to be entitled to anything more substantial than a 
hope, or is in fact too weak for faith to lay hold of. When we examine 
the mediums through which these pretended revelations were made, and 
analyze their abilities, and their qualifications, entitling them to be 
selected by an omniscient being such as god is represented to be,through 
and by which to communicate this most important information to man- 
kind, we can be certain that what they reveal had no better source than 
their own weak and undeveloped intellects, for it would be an insult to 
attribute such a mess of obscenity and absurdity to any supernatural 



102 The Skeptic's Defense. 

being, and then hold up that being as a fit and proper object of worship. 

If any information was so important as to justify an infinite being, 
to give it to one race or tribe of his creatures, every individual of the 
race to whom this was important, was just as much entitled to have a 
separate revelation as any particular favored one was, in fact no revela- 
tion is possible in any other form, for a revelation to one, to be by him 
transmitted to another, is no revelation to this second person, but mere 
hearsay, requiring faith without evidence, which no one but the person 
of the weakest mental capacity ever submits to and that is in fact the 
only way this worthless Bible has been forced onto the deluded dupes of 
the first set of impostors, who invented the beginning of this stupendous 
imposition, and made its way in the world. The successive generations 
of men, who have succeeded one another, since the first introduction of 
this book, after its translation, have without any remonstrance or 
inquiry, submitted to the different impostors, who have succeed one 
another, and have continually added one imposition after another, till 
the race now on the stage are beginning to investigate doubt and 
inquire, and when this process is fairly begun, it can never stop short ot 
a complete destruction of all this false assumption. 

Let us examine some of the reasons why it is impossible for any 
body but a natural fool or a mere infant, just beginning to manifest 
any mental capacity to attach the least importance to this book, more 
than to any other, on account of any superstitious feeling of reverence. 
No book that was ever written, in any language, can possibly convey to 
any reader, however familiar he may be with that language, precisely 
the same thoughts the author of that book intended to convey, for he 
himself, is not able at all times to clearly state in written language, his 
own thoughts on a given subject, for want of words of the appropriate 
meaning, to clearly express his thoughts, except upon such subjects as 
are capable of demonstration or proof, as all scientific subjects are, but 
if this book is to be circulated where the language in which it is written 
is unknown, then a translation becomes indispensable. The author 
who writes the book never makes this translation, and whoever makes 
it, cannot possibly give anything but an imperfect translation, leaving 
the meaning of the author still more obscure than he at first made it, 
for want of words suitable to express his thoughts precisely, a second 
translation is then made to adapt it to another language, spoken and 
understood by another people, a translation of a translation, which in 
most cases, nearly destroys the first written copy, and any value it at 
first had is wholly lost and the foregoing process describes the manner 
in which this worthless book we call the Bible, has come down to our 
times, and we are required and expected to reverence it, and rely upon 



The Revisions of the Bible Noticed. 103 

its teachings, and use its precepts as a guide by which to find our way 
prosperously through this world, and reach heaven, and escape hell in a 
world to come. Let this process go on as it confessedly has gone on in 
the multitudes of re-translations, the Bible has undergone, to make it 
adapted to the various languages among which missionaries have been 
sent, and who is so blind, he cannot see and believe that what we have, 
is no more to be depended upon than a mere dream as being in any 
sense like the revelation first given, admitting any was ever given, and 
when the further fact is considered, that the information that this revela- 
tion is of the highest importance, and the precise meaning sought to be 
conveyed by this revelation, must be so clear and easily understood by 
tne weakest intellect, for he is as much entitled to its benefits as the 
strongest, the absurdity of trying to palm off this mess of trash as a 
revelation from god of unquestionable truth and undoubted importance, 
becomes but little, if any short of a crime. 

There is another way to look at this subject that is still more abhor- 
rent, and unreasonable. The revisions of this many times translated 
book ar0 numerous, each revision claiming to be more accurate than 
any of its predecessors, and interpolations, and omissions numerous 
and important, and which seriously alter many hitherto esteemed funda- 
mental theories, built upon the original supposed authentic first copies. 
The author of the dream of some wild lunatic which the various com- 
mentators have finally concluded must be John the evangelist, and put 
last in the list so as to give force, to the threat there made, and presum- 
ably by the same divine direction by which all this miserable dream or 
vision was directed, he was under, when he wrote the preceding part, 
threatening all those who should dare to add to, or to take from, or 
alter in the slightest degree, any of the statements thus far made, and 
annexes the severest penalties for any such interference, but in spite of 
any of these warnings or threats being heeded, a great many thousand 
alterations, omissions and additions are made in every new version or 
revision ; how many in those revisions previous to the latest one of the 
new testament cannot be stated, but it is reasonable to conclude they 
are as numerous, if not more so, than this last, which according to a 
computation published by the direction of those who made the revision, 
is as follows: Eighteen thousand three hundred and fifty-eight words 
changed by a substituted rendering of the received text, four thousand 
six hundred and fifty-four words added in translation of the received 
text, five hundred and fifty words in translation of the additions in the 
Greek text, one thousand six hundred and four words to translate an 
altered Greek text, and two hundred and twenty-three words taken from 
the margin into the text, making in all twenty-five thousand three hun- 



104 * The Skeptic's Defense. 

dred and eighty-eight words changed out of one hundred and seventy- 
nine thousand nine hundred and fourteen words making seventeen per 
cent, of the whole. These holy revisers paid no attention to the threats 
or the warning of the miserable author of these warnings, but as far 
as it is at present known, none of these penalties have been inflicted on 
thesv j . misguided persons who have dared in the face of these threats and 
warnings to so far mutilate what was before described to be so perfect 
that any mutilation would completely destroy its authority, and any 
omission would presuppose a want of wisdom on the part of the 
inspired author that caused him to write either more or less that the 
holy ghost dictated to him. 

Let us examine some of the omissions in the revised new testament. 
One omission occurs in the first epistle or letter of this same St. John, 
who made these fearful threats in the Revelations, at the close of the last 
chapter, and is a very important omission, for it nearly destroys the doc- 
trine of the trinity of the god-head. The omitted words occur in the 
seventh verse, and are the strongest of any on which this trinity hum- 
bug rests. These are the words : " There are three that bare record in 
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three art 
one," and this omission so perceptibly weakens this foolish doctrine of the 
trinity, that the Unitarians are very confident in expecting strong rein- 
forcements to their ranks, who have never admitted that the fictitious 
Christ was more than human. The trinitarian still holds on to one or two 
weak passages that gives a little hint in their favor, butTthey have lost 
their main support in losing this verse. Another omission destroys both 
the Baptist doctrine, and also what little authority there apparently was 
for the outrageous conduct of the missionaries, who always have 
insisted on forcing themselves on to the inhabitants of distant regions, 
uninvited under a false impression that it was an obligation. The six- 
teenth chapter of Mark, from the ninth verse to the close, is all spurious, 
and is so certified to by these revisers, who inclose in brackets what' they 
say in the margin, is not found in any of the manuscripts, clearly prov- 
ing that these spurious verses have been added by former revisers. They 
have also destroyed the previously recorded statments in the second 
epistle to his son Timothy, which Paul calls his son, simply because he 
succeeded in humbugging him into renouncing a former belief which 
had a value for one different, but no better. In the second letter to him, 
he says in the sixteenth verse of the third chapter: " All scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable, etc." The revised version reads : 
" Every scripture that is inspired of God, etc." Who is to be the judge 
what is inspired and what is not, and what is to prevent any who chooses 
to deny any inspiration to any portion of it, and still claim to admit and 



A Specimen of the Way Christianity Operates. 105 

practice the beneficial moral precepts that are scattered about in it, but 
are not new or original, but are found in writings, dated thousands of 
years before the new testament was produced, or any of its authors lived, 
and from which these precepts were derived? 

Any one not competent to examine into the subject for himself, but 
depended on the statements of these humbugs, called Christian minis- 
ters, who have set themselves up as commentators and expositors of 
Bible morality, that, if the Bible was taken away from any people that 
ever have had it, they would immediately lapse from civilization of a 
superior order into barbarism. When the truth is, and can be demon- 
strated that some of the best specimens of a high civilization, whose 
inhabitants lived, flourished and perished thousands of years before any 
part of the Bible, or the authors of it were called into existence, and are 
at present living side by side, with the best civilization the Bible nations 
can produce, and are every way as prosperous and happy as they would 
be if nothing but the Bible had ever been used by them, and are vastly 
better off in some important respects, for they are free from many of the 
glaring vices which are constantly eating out the vitals and sapping the 
foundations on which all civilized society must depend for permanence 
and stability. 

The various nations or people, constituting all living in South Amer- 
ica, who always have had the Christian Bible and religion, are notwith- 
standing that fact, as barbarous, at the present time, as any country 
under heaven, so also is Central America and Mexico, and will always 
remain, so long as the priests can retain their present unholy and super- 
stitious grasp on the masses, and prevent the spread of secular knowl- 
edge, for Christianity alone never gave the least assistance to any na'ion, 
any more than any other has. How was it in Europe during the dark 
ages. You have only to read the history of that time to be convinced 
that the church was the only obstacle that prevented the acquiring or 
the use of knowledge, and in every age, and country, where it can crush 
out the masses, and fill them with a rubbish they call religion, barbar- 
ism is the result instead of progress. Then look at the disgraceful way 
the Bible has been gotten together or compiled into its present form. 
There is revealed a sanguinary contest in a literary way as to the gen- 
uine or spurious character of its fragmentary parts, making it a mere 
matter of personal impression, based on a majority vote of a nest of 
corrupt impostors, who had the impudence to assume to decide for all 
those who succeeded them to whom this Bible was to be furnished, what 
was revelation, and what was not, and the result has been to divide and 
weaken the contending factions, and deprive the people of the benefit of 
united and harmonious agreement and prevent any intelligent conclu- 
sion from being reached. 



106 The Skeptic's Defense. 

A large and powerful branch, if not an actual majority refuse to 
admit that the Apocrypha of the old testament is not inspired, and con- 
sequently use the Apocryphal books, and find therein authority to 
found the doctrine of purgatory or intermediate state between time and 
eternity, also the authority to expect through prayer or mass for the 
dead believer, who has; failed to get absolution, rescue such soul, and 
secure admission to the happiness of heaven,if a sufficient sum of money 
is forthcoming, and not otherwise. The Greek Christians agree with 
neither the Roman or the Protestant Christian, as they have no pope, 
and allow the priests to marry, and have not yet discovered that time is 
reckoned by the period of the annual revolution of the earth around the 
sun, and consequently are two weeks behind the rest of the world, in all 
their calculations, a period at the present time, amounting to fifteen 
days; that is a specimen of how fanaticism and superstition can make 
downright fools of their victims and hold them there. 

The Armenians, who have their home in the country where the great 
Apostle Paul performed the greater part of his missionary labor, but 
who are now subjects of the Turks, differ from all the rest, and refuse 
to fellowship any of them, and have a Bible of their own make, differing 
all from each other, drawing radically different conclusions from sub- 
stantially the same source, and holding them with the most determined 
tenacity, and are all trying to convert the supposed heathen world to 
their own peculiar systems, but meet with very poor success, consider- 
ing the vast expense attending the efforts put forth in the useless opera- 
tions, most of which, instead of being 1 put to the use for which it was 
obtained, finds its way into the pockets of the rascally managers of this 
mission racket, and the poor deluded missionary is left to shirk for him- 
self, the best he can. If nobody derived any pecuniary benefit by 
upholding this spurious and worthless publication, its merits alone 
would not be able to sustain it a year, but such a vast horde of greedy 
ecclesiastics, of all grades, have a direct object in making the Bible 
appear too sacred, and too mysterious for the common people to under- 
stand, hence the calling of the various grades of clergy is made indis- 
pensable, and no wonder they so represent it, for as soon as doubt and 
uncertainty are allowed to gain any advantage over credulity and super- 
stition, they very well understand that unless this is prevented or neu- 
tralized, the whole rotten fabric of fraud and deception on which they 
subsist and thrive, will tumble into its well merited ruin, and when that 
stage is reached, there is some hope that reason and common sense 
will be taken as a guide in the investigation of religious questions, the 
same as it is now used' in all other matters which concern human wel- 
fare. It is the most astonishing and unaccountable thing for a rational 



The Pagan Origin of Judaism Noticed. 107 

being to try to contemplate or explain why it is that all business trans- 
actions are conducted on strictly business methods by all business men, 
according to their capacity to manage such business and a rigid, hon- 
esty and integrity is required in all transactions, by all subordinates, 
who are employed by such business managers, and any deviation from 
what instinctively is admitted to be right and just between man and 
man, is sternly rebuked, and as far as possible is detected and punished, 
and at the same time, and in the same community another class of men 
apparently of the same general ability and intelligence, submit unresist- 
ingly to the most monstrous and absurd impositions in the name of 
religion and no thought is given and no effort is made to even attempt 
the investigation of the most momentous of all subjects, so considered 
by these dupes, the eternal welfare of their immortal souls, but leave the 
whole matter, notwithstanding its importance, to be settled by a set of 
priests, in whom they place confidence, and who are not worthy of any 
confidence to instruct them and they receive such instruction and pay lib- 
erally for it without so much as inquiring as to the moral honesty and 
integrity of these men when the truth is that the men so employed and 
paid are for the most part wholly untrustworthy. 

In order to make any religious imposition possible to be upheld and 
perpetuated, the impostor, who invented these various systems of fraud 
and deception, also invented special days on which they required their 
dupes to come together to receive such instruction as they choose to 
impart. This is as true in the case of those forms of religious supersti- 
tion which by the Christians are named Pagans, or heathens, as it is in 
the case of the Jew and Christian, and authentic history of the Chinese, 
the Japanese, the Indies, and other now extinct nations, represent that 
long before the period when the Jew began to compute time, these 
sacred days had become firmly fixed in the esteem and practice of these 
primative men, and this mythical account of the origin of the Jewish 
Sabbath, recorded in Exodus is a mere reproduction of the then ancient 
myth, but so altered as to change the date when the Sabbath was to be 
observed, and the cause why it must be observed at that time so as to 
make such reason seem probable to the ignorant dupes of these impost- 
ors, who have since been named Jews, that god did actually need, and 
take rest after such a struggle to produce something out of nothing, and 
has actually rested or ceased to create something out of nothing ever 
since the first six days. 

That impression by constant usage, and long, continued and per- 
sistent instruction by each successive generation of impostors, who 
finally established a hierarchy of grades of religious teachers as prophets, 
high priests, priests, and other inferior orders, became, in time, so firmlv 



108 The Skeptic's Defense. 

established in the usages and practice of the lower classes, under the 
false impression that it wasi really necessary for their physical welfare 
to devote one-seventh of the time to physical rest, that this same Jewish 
successors of this first set of dupes after more than four thousand years 
since their history begins, has transpired that they still observe and con- 
duct such religious ceremonies and worship as are possible to them in 
the place where their lot is cast on the same seventh day. The Christ- 
ian while hypocritically using the ten commandments, simply because 
they are a part of revelation and confessedly better entitled to credit than 
any other part of this pretended revelation has never been able to 
invent any plausible reason why he did not adopt the Jewish Sabbath, 
but the reason they give for the change to the first day, are so very 
absurd, and unsatisfactory, that a large amount of force and compulsion 
was required for more than three hundred years before any fixed time 
for sacred instruction was generally observed. These reasons, poor as 
they were and are, finally resulted in causing the Christians' Sunday to 
be adopted and observed for the reason, in addition to what was before 
paraded as a reason, that a heathen emperor, named Constantine, was 
converted on that day of the week by a vision or dream, and he had 
enough civil power to enforce obedience and accordingly it has since 
been adopted as the Christian Sabbath or Sunday, and after a loose 
fashion it has been feebly held and observed by some portion of the 
Christian world, but that portion represented by the Greek schismatic 
faction, stubbornly refuse to adopt the Gregorian calendar, and are 
more than two weeks behind all other Christians in observing, both the 
birth or Christmas, or the death of Christ, or Easter, and, of course, are 
all wrong in their Sunday calculations, and are just as well off as though 
they coincided with their fellow Christians. The manifest tendency of 
the present time is towards the abolishing these long perpetuated impo- 
sitions, which never were of any benefit, but in most cases a positive 
damage, by causing the people to assemble in a building called the 
sanctuary, and listen to spurious instruction, so as to intensify and per- 
petuate superstition and also fanaticism, and submit to a system of 
extortion of their resources of so many of the poorer and ignorant 
classes as to diminish to a great extent their comfort and pleasure in 
this world, for the sake of a fictitious and impossible hereafter, which is 
made to these ignorant dupes to appear real by this false instruction. 
This applies to the whole human family, in all countries, and under all 
forms of religious humbug and deception for the whole human race, as 
far as commerce has yet extended, have the blighting curse of some 
form of religious humbug and deception to grapple with, and this 
becomes so costly and intolerably oppressive in time, as to create and 



Variety of Bible Teaching Noticed. 109 

perpetuate poverty, and for want of resources, to provide means to 
instruct the successive generations of children secures the continuation 
of ignorance, making it easy to impose any form of deception, which 
the priests consider necessary in order to make their influence perpetual. 

The Christian bigots, who assert that the old testament scriptures 
are divinely inspired, are undoubtedly under the impression that the 
writers thereof, whoever they were, living in the times they did, and 
among the vile surroundings by which they must have been environed, 
cculd not have originated some of those confessedly lofty moral pre- 
cepts, which every skeptic is ready to admit they in some parts contain, 
mless they were divinely instructed or inspired, when the real truth is 
that all these moral precepts are found in writings that were extant 
long previous to the time when any of the most ancient of these frag- 
ments were written, and were accessible to these writers, and hence all 
these sublime teachings were 1 the result of the wisdom and experience 
of many generations of the ancestors of these supposed, inspired writers, 
and as an offset or counter argument against the possibility of main- 
taining or upholding the theory of divine inspiration, it is only 
necessary to say and every candid mind will admit its truth and justice, 
without the least hesitation. 

A large portion of these so-called sacred writings are composed of 
as low meagre, and unworthy sentiments as ever took their rise in any 
savage, and uncultivated intellects, and it is only by repeating the 
changes over and over, on a few good and worthy passages, which are 
universally and unhesitatingly admitted to be salutary, and passing over 
the low, obscene, and contemptibly vile and untruthful passages, the 
priests, continually and intentionally, impose upon the people, and they 
being for the most part too sluggish and indifferent to " search the 
scriptures for themselves, up to a very recent period, and those in these 
later times, who have by the advancement of scientific discoveries, been 
compelled to harmonize the conflicting statements of science and revela- 
tion, finding it impossible to do so, and being candid and truthful 
enough to admit a want of harmony, and because science could bring 
proof, and revelation could do no more than assume, have dared to pub- 
licly and fearlessly declare that the Bible had no more claim to be 
regarded as inspiration, than any other ancient writings, and when such 
admissions are made publicly and fearlessly by the best scholars, and 
those who occupy the highest positions inj the best theological institu- 
tions, and occupy and adorn the best grades of church pastorates and 
pulpits, how can those who always have looked to such men as author- 
ity, longer refuse to as much as investigate for themselves or else accept 
as authority, the statements of those in whom thev formerlv trusted. 



110 The Skeptic's Defense. 

when their teachings were in harmony with that which the creed to 
which they before consented, but which is found out later to be defec- 
tive. 

When we attempt to compare the teachings of science, which reveals 
nature's laws to the comprehension of the average human intellect, with 
the teachings of revelation, as they are unfolded or explained by the 
so-called science of theology, we perceive how much more satisfactory 
the laws and movements of nature are, than is the entire system of theol- 
ogy, with all the absurd twaddle about angry gods and devils, heavens 
and hells, that theologic priests have been able by the revealed word of 
God to invent and endeavor to substantiate, or make real, we easily see 
there is no comparison between the two, for nature is all that is grand 
and great and true, and can be, and is so proved by science, while the- 
ology, based on revelation, is the quintessence of ignorance, imagination 
and falsehood. Nature, as taught by astronomy, for one example is the 
great reality, the great truth, and the same is true of mathematics, and 
other of the sciences, while theology is wholly fiction, invention, and 
absurdity, one is real and free as air to any who will study it, while the 
other has an excessive price, and when that is paid, you have simply 
guess work and arrogant assumption, and it results as it is easy to see, 
in an immense difference, there is in favor of nature over revelation of 
the Bible, as we have it. 

As this charge of debauchery and robbery, chiefly applies to the 
mother of all church organizations, the Holy Roman church, but at the 
same time though, in a lesser, in a modified sense, the charge of extor- 
tion applies to all churches, it becomes necessary and proper to separate 
the Roman branch from all other Christians, and inquire what Roman- 
ism is, and give at least a partial description of some of its leading 
characteristics, for even a meagre delineation will disclose such a hor- 
rible and marvelous structure oi imposture and fraud, that history will 
be consulted in vain, to find anything to compare with it in atrocity, or 
in absurdity, for it has not one redeeming trait that gives it the right to 
be called a Christian church, but instead, it should rank far below any 
form of paganism the world has ever produced, in the various forms of 
civilizations, which have existed in the past, or in the present. What 
a marvelous structure it is, with its hierarchy or governing machinery, 
ranging through long centuries, almost from apostolic days to our own; 
all this time, living side by side, and mingling with forms of civilization 
and uncivilization the most diverse, and the most contradictory, 
through all the more than fifteen hundred years, since its first assump- 
tion of universal authority, and its ambition to attain to universal power, 
all this time, and also at the present time, asserting and maintaining an 



A Full Description of Romanism. Ill 

effective control over opinions, and institutions, always claiming and 
insisting in the face of all opposition, that its pontificate dated back to 
the fishermen of Galilee, and its pontiffs or popes, still residing, and in 
a spiritual sense reigning there in the city, as they say, but cannot prove, 
that heard Saint Peter preach, and whom it claims to have seen martyred 
or slain, by being crucified with his head downwards, impiously and 
untruthfully pretending to sit in the chair literally, which St. Peter once 
sat in, and to hold in his hand the keys to the door or gate to the king- 
dom of heaven, once given by Christ to Saint Peter. This great assump- 
tion of authority and power, has been shaken, exiled, broken again and 
again, by Lutheran and other like revolts, and French revolutions, yet 
always righting itself, and recovering, and reasserting a vitality, that 
neither force or contending factions of opinions have yet been able to 
extinguish. 

Once, for many centuries in its early history, with its foot on the 
neck of kings, creating and deposing at will, and having the fate of 
empires in its hands, and even now superintending and managing the 
grandest ecclesiastical mechanism that man has ever seen, ordering fast 
days and feast days, and regulating with omnipotent fiat the very diet, 
both in kind, and quantity, of many millions of people, having countless 
bands of the most obsequious religious soldiers, trained, organized and 
officered, as such a soldiery never was before or since, and backed and 
supported by an infallibility, that is defiant of reason, and intolerant of 
questioning, an inquisition which has been previously partly described 
in this writer's account, to either bend or break the will, and a confes- 
sional to unlock all hearts, and master the most profound secrets of all 
consciences. Such has always been the mighty church of Rome, and 
there it still is, somewhat cast down to be sure from what it once was, 
but not yet destroyed, perplexed by the variety and freedom of an 
intellectual civilization, which it hates, and vainly tries to crush, and 
failing to do that, laboriously trying to adjust itself to the Europe, and 
the world of the nineteenth century, as it once before, tried to adjust 
and adapt itself to Europe as it was in the twelfth century, by lengthen- 
ing its cords, and strengthening its stakes, enlarging the boundary of its 
tents, and sretching forth the curtains of its habitations, even so as to 
include the free I government of this republic in the new world of 
America. 

Such now is the tremendous fabric of Rome, attempting unsuccess- 
fully to stand out on the foreground of the world's history, and bearing 
on its scarred bosom, the marks of its contests in the various civiliza- 
tions and barbarisms, through which it has passed in its progress to its 
present position. This position, if we regard it as a mere human institu- 



112 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tion, which it undoubtedly is, is worthy of the profoundest study of all 
men ; but the moment it puts in a claim of divine or holy origin, it sinks 
beneath the contempt of human reason. If it comes before us in its 
sacerdotal robes, and bids us bow our faith to its monstrous profanities, 
we shake it from us, and cast it off with disgust and horror unutterable. 
But in its human aspects, and in its moral and political career, we will 
look fairly at it and inquire, how it comes to pass that an institution so 
loaded with the most outrageous crimes ,and horrible groans of ages 
long past, and stained with the blood of unnumbered martyred victims 
of its savage cruelty, and fraught with such sickening and foolish 
absurdities, could hold on so long, and play the part it has, and still does 
in the history of the world's progress. Although such an assertion 
would be strictly true, it will not do to dispose of this question, by sim- 
ply saying the Roman church was all a lie, and a damnable cheat in its 
beginning, and still is as every other institution of barbarism was, and 
would now be if transplanted to our times ; nor will it do to call it, in its 
origin and first inception, a deliberate scheme for usurping the rights 
and freedom of mankind, on so magnificent proportions as it afterwards 
developed, for it was not merely that, but also a natural growth, out of 
the social, moral and political causes, which operated in the first six 
centuries; for it grew up slowly and naturally, was molded into its ulti- 
mate form by the pressure of many outward circumstances, and bears 
the marks much as other institutions of former times do, of the various 
ages and states of civilization that have successively been contemporan- 
eous with it. 

Who is so lacking in perception, that he cannot see, that Romanism 
as we know it, and have it, was the product of a spurious form of nom- 
inal Christianity, coming in contact and conflict with pagan modes of 
thought and feeling, which when this monstrous iniquity was first 
invented, had full possession of the Roman world, for its. doctrines at 
the outset, were not simply and only the priestly inventions and man- 
ufactures, they were also the expressions of the prevalent tendencies of 
the pagan, or heathen minds; and the effect of general causes in the 
moral world. What was image worship, and hero worship, but con- 
cession to demands of the popular mind as then existing among all 
forms of paganism; and any one not blinded by priestly instruction and 
bias, must admit that such worship is as far removed from the spirit 
and precepts of the Christ of the Gospels, as it is possible to imagine, 
and is Greek philosophy only. 

The origin of Romanism then, is simply and only a compromise 
between Christianism and paganism, by means of which paganism, 
nearly all the superstitions and immoralities were absorbed, and they 



Description of Romanism Continued. U3 

thus contrived to get themselves baptized into the Christian name and 
usage, and this fatal consummation was not wholly the work of the 
priest alone, for the people were ready to sanction and adopt what the 
priest demanded, for no interference with established pagan usage was 
required. What were the various councils for, but to represent the 
demands of the people, who sent them as their delegates to formulate, 
after deliberation and debate, with their pagan adversaries, such ques- 
tions as, whether for instance, Mary of Nazareth might be invoked as 
mother of god, which when decided by a majority vote in the affirma- 
tive, was received without further objection, and has never been 
rescinded, and although this and other like doctrines were directly made 
and formulated by priests, it was done at the wish and demand of the 
people, and the Christianized pagan, was compelled to assent to what 
was to him a monstrous lie, because a majority of council was corrupt 
enough to decide to that effect, and this is only a sample of all other 
compromises, that made in the long run Romanism what it is ; the con- 
fessional, masses for the dead, penances, purgatory, the consecration of 
names and relics of monasticism, with its fasts and vigils, and a thousand 
more like absurdities, were the product of the general demand of the 
pagan feeling, finding voice and expression in connection with the 
Christian ideas. In like manner the dogmatizing theories of Rome was 
advanced into a system of theology, and long creeds were fenced in by 
short and sharp anathemas, invented, it is true, by the priest, but only to 
satisfy a demand of the people, which demand was created by previous 
false instruction, by these same or like priests, having the ability by their 
training in theology, to dispel and demolish the reasoning of the Greek 
mind, who were inclined to syllogism and disputation; and when 
brought into contact with such eminent thinkers as the various mon- 
asteries had developed, the Christian was able and did in fact translate 
paganism into Christianity, by a sort of mental somerset, or metem- 
phycosis, so that the soul, or previous impression of the Greek, was 
made to live over again ; and this or something similar, was the process 
of introducing what has passed as Christianity, as far as it has been able 
to find any adherents, therefore there is nothing very strange or mysteri- 
ous about the rise and the subsequent growth of this vast fabric of 
Romanism, for it rose out of a great number of interests, or intellectual 
and moral wants and habits, embodied into an organized institution by 
a long succession of powerful minds, themselves partaking of these 
varied influences, and often giving expression to them in connection 
with the most vulgar superstitions of the times. 

Romanism has been, and always is ready and willing to compound, 
or amalgamate with any and every popular vice and superstition, for 



114 The Skeptic's Defense. 

the sake of unlimited dominion over the public mind, and this has been, 
and now is the means, by which it has acquired a fearful control over 
opinions and institutions, during the fifteen centuries of its reign, and it 
has yet to show any benefit, to as much as begin to offset the immense 
cost and suffering it has been directly responsible for. The struggle of 
this monstrous imposition, was, first to get established; and ever since 
it felt strong enough to undertake such a devilish task, its chief struggle 
and endeavor has been, to drag the heart and brain of man backward 
into the night, out of which it came. It has always been the scourge 
of modern civilization, by obstinately keeping the free progressive spirit 
of man locked up in the same eternal damnable prison of an arbitrary 
ritual, and an artificial creed, containing dogmas at which common 
sense revolts, enforced by anathemas, or denunciations, at which human- 
ity does, and well it may shudder; and so ordering things, that there 
could be neither progression or change, without a life and death con- 
flict; compelling the spirit of reform to be revolutionary, giving Europe 
many centuries of religious wars, and bequeathing to European civiliza- 
tion, a spirit of intolerance, tyranny and fiery denunciation, which, but 
for a counter spirit stronger than itself, would have left the world at this 
time, as far from Christianity and Christian civilization, as it was when 
Pope Innocent, the third, sat in Saint Peter's chair, and Hildebrand was 
the Roman emperor. How could such a corrupt church push itself so 
far into the center of modern civilization, with, which it never had, or 
can ever have, any sympathy, and which it only embraces to destroy? 
How could a total lie administer comfort and aid to so many millions 
of souls? The truth is it never did fulfil the promise the priests have 
made in that respect, and is only a fraud and deception, and any benefit 
is not realized, and when too late, the deception is disclosed. 

All reasonable men are ready to and dd acknowledge that there is 
such a thing as universal truth, for indeed all truth is universal when it 
is apprehended aright, but there never was any such a thing as apos- 
tolic succession, except by an interior life divine and true; and the false 
doctrine of apostolic succession, by which the Roman Popes claim 
authority, has perverted and hardened the diffusive spirit of truth, into 
so much mechanism, and cast it into a mold in which it has been forcibly 
kept, and by getting progressively falser, and falser, as the world gets 
older and wiser, it is now another name, for a narrow and intolerant sect- 
ism, while the infallibility committed itself to one absurdity after 
another, so that in consequence, reason turns giddy, and even faith has 
no resource but to shut her eyes, and the apostolic succession becomes 
narrowed down, into a mere dynasty of priests and pontiffs, a mere 
hierarchy of the theological magicians, saving souls by machinery, 



The Traffic in Relics Condemned. 116 

opening and closing the gate to the kingdom of heaven by an incanta- 
tion or acrobatic performance, so intricate that the labor and study of a 
life time, would have been required, before Saint Peter, or Saint Paul, 
could understand or imitate it. 

In this abyss of superstition and moral pollution, when the voice 
and the writings of Luther came upon it like the reverberation of thun- 
der,, when priests and monks had adopted the employment on a large 
scale of selling salvation in anv shape or quantity, on slips of parch- 
ment, when heaven and the grace of god were made marketable com- 
modities, were priced and ticketed, bought and sold, till thinking men 
began to doubt, whether there could be any heaven or not. It was 
time for men of spirit and ability, as well as of honesty, to speak out 
against that fearful hierarchy of priests, who were preying upon the 
credulity of mankind. What was the real spirit and power of the Luth- 
eran protest against Romanism, for it is evident that it was not creed 
against creed in the beginning at all; but it afterwards developed into 
that; but at first it was only the uprising of the human heart and con- 
science against both the ecclesiastical absurdities and immoralities. 
What a wonderfully immoral, but yet a very profitable traffic which 
these priests of Romanism carried on with the relics of the dead. It 
cunningly seized upon one of the strongest cords of human nature, for 
although we must call such an emotion a superstition, yet there is in 
nearly all natures, a profound feeling at the bottom of this veneration 
for relics. How often do we see and not without a feeling of at least 
sympathy, some sensitive natures weeping over a lock of hair, which 
belonged once to a departed friend, and with what loving devotion the 
heart clings to the slightest thing, that brings back to us the remem- 
brance of a name once hallowed in our affections, but the coarsest 
human nature revolts at the imposture of a spurious relic, and the 
Roman church has many thousand such relics, as the finger nail from 
the hand of Saint Peter, a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in 
spirits, a quill from the cock that crowed at the crucifixion, the holy coat 
at treves, pieces of the real cross, and others equally groundless relics, 
which have been a .prolific source from which to realize a rich revenue; 
and these have never been verified, and need not be. 

Now, who shall, or can, compute the stupifying and brutalizing 
effect of such a religion? Who will dare say, that a principle that so 
debases reason and judgment is not in its effects like bands of iron 
around the expanding heart and struggling limbs of freedom? Who 
ivill dare tell the world that this terrible church does not lie upon the 
bosom of all past time, since it first arose, and upon the present time, 
like a vast unwieldly and offensive corpse, crushing the life blood out of 



116 The Skeptic's Defense. 

the body of modern thought and modern civilization alike? It is not 
merely as a religious creed that we are looking at this thing. It is not 
as a religious or theological speculation or for its theological sins, that 
we are here to condemn it; but it is its effect upon civilization and 
political and social freedom that we are discussing, for what must be the 
ultimate political night that settles on a people who are without indi- 
viduality of opinion, and independence of will; and whose brains are 
thus by such a process made tools of, and put in the hands of a clan or 
order of priests. It is only necessary to look over there into the sad 
state of Europe, and into Mexico and South America, to see it all. See, 
in the past and present degraded condition of the Catholic element in 
every place where its sway is unopposed, it marks itself with night, and 
drags the soul and energies, and the freedom of the people backwards, 
and downwards into political and social inaction, into the unfathomable 
quag-mire of death. It leaves its unholy marks even upon the soil, upon 
industry, upon every resource of national and individual greatness, and 
also upon the very faces of a people, where submission and ignorance 
are enthroned, and over the crushed and degraded intellect. In all 
Catholic countries on the face of- the globe, the jail is greater than the 
schcolhouse; the hospital for the infirm, than the means of self-support 
and self-respect. 

The foregoing thoughts, naturally lead to the subject of 
liberty, which may for our present purpose be confined to 
religious liberty, or freedom of not only thought, but the liberty unre- 
strained to cultivate such religious sentiments and beliefs, as have so 
impressed our reason as to compel the reasoq to give its assent to its 
importance, with the view of further investigation, or to be convinced of 
its truth or reality, and in addition to ourselves having received such 
truth, liberty to instruct others, to such an extent as our opportunities 
and abilities admit of, without any interference by outside restraint, or 
the apprehension of any, by any ecclesiastical authority whatever, which 
when fully realized, would abolish all organized systems that require 
rules and regulations, and creeds, to which, whether willing or not, the 
victim has been obliged by force or fear to attach and form one of their 
number; for all systems which have appeared among those where his lot 
has been cast, and this result has been made not only possible, but 
obligatory, by the circumstances of their being born and reared, where 
such instruction as they were permitted to receive, had a direct tendency 
to create, and also to foster and perpetuate superstitious reverence, for 
usages and beliefs entertained by their predecessors, to such an extent 
as to deprive them of any opportunity, or even so much as a desire to 
inquire into any other system. 



The Development of Judaism Into Christianity. 117 

The inventors of all systems at the outset, were so far removed from 
the present time in the distant past, that their predecessors had scarcely 
emerged from the savage state into the barbarous condition, before an 
attempt was made to find a mode to explain the most simple operations 
of nature's laws, such as sunrise and sunset, day and night, heat and 
cold, and such simple explanations were more impossible, and so far 
beyond their capacity to understand or explain, that many ages of 
progress and experience must have elapsed, before the weak intellects 
had become able to grasp even a theory, much less look for a demon- 
stration. But constant increase in mental capacity by using experience 
of former generations, finally reached a point where the futile or unsuc- 
cessful attempts of the most gifted intellects then to be had,groped along 
the dark path, in search of light enough to reveal a faint conception of 
a supernatural cause, behind or before every event, but the cause was as 
far beyond the ability of the most gifted intellect to conceive at that 
time, any more certain than a guess, as it always since has been, and will 
always continue to be, but for a people just a step removed from barbar- 
ism to a semi-civilized state, a system of religion, or what was supposed 
to be capable of developing in the succeeding ages into such a system, 
was for the first time introduced, and by long, patient, persistent and 
persevering effort, finally after many experiments and failures reached a 
point, where organization was possible and practicable, and Judaism, in 
a crude form, was in a recent era, made possible and from an imper- 
ceptible germ of ignorance and error, a beginning was made of a system 
of falsehood and fraud, which after the struggles and vicissitudes ot 
many thousands of years, is still at present in existence, and has never in 
all its history been anything but a curse and fraud on all who have been 
its victims ; its defects which were revealed by experience were so far 
removed, that spurious Christianity of the last fifteen hundred years has 
derived its precarious and unworthy existence from it. This bastard spuri- 
ous parentage, could produce no better children thari its own unworthy 
origin made possible. They were an ignorant, semi-civilized people, who 
were in the midst,or surrounded on all sides by more enlightened nations 
than themselves,when some from their ablest and best minds had arrived 
at so advanced a period of acquired knowledge, that he thought himself 
capable to invent an explanation, to transmit to his own, and future gen- 
erations, the origin of the world and all it contains; and explain, not 
only the way all visible objects had been produced, but also the being 
who produced it, and the time when the work was begun, the length of 
time required, the articles made, and the rest from labor of the maker ; 
who was exhausted by so much effort as to never resume labor again. 
This first writing, was the crude, imperfect outline of the complicated 



118 The Skeptic's Defense. 

machine of the Jewish system, which from time to time required repairs 
and improvement from later and more able inventors, and writers, and 
its defects which were revealed by experience were so far removed, that 
an end of improvement was reached, and perfect order and adaptation to 
the wants of the then existing nation that nothing further was either 
desired or expected, and that which we now have, and have been 
assured by those who transmitted it to us was a revelation from the 
one. God of the Jews, through the medium of inspired or divinely 
instructed men, was all that was, is, or ever would be recmired as a 
guide for human conduct, till the end of time. The absurdity of this 
whole scheme of deception and imposture, was never discovered by 
the successors of its authors, and received sanction and endorsement by 
the highest authority, so that its continuance was practicable and neces- 
sary, as an ambitious rival for the systems of those among whom 
these early Jews had their home, and with whom they were in con- 
stant conflict, but were never able to either terrify or to exterminate, or 
force to adopt their civilization, or their religion. 

The separation and isolation of the people who afterwards were 
named Israelites, and still later Jews, made them in a measure obliged to 
invent and adopt a peculiar form of religious belief, and practice cere- 
monies invented by the priests, wherein one god only, and he the invis- 
ible author of all visible nature, and nature's, laws, selected and 
instructed their principal originator and ancestor, Abraham, how to 
find an unoccupied region, in which to begin to develop a nation, over 
whom he would exercise a special protection and care, and abandon 
the care of all other of his children in their favor; and instruct them how 
to worship and serve him, and let the devil have the rest of humanity, 
and see what could be made of them in comparison with this nation he 
chose, in and through whom he would guide and govern the world. 
The mode introduced and adopted and made permanent is still in force 
among that people, and has been copied by the Christian, and all other 
religions, which is intellectual slavery and spiritual bondage of the 
masses, with the addition of brutal ignorance and superstition, thereby 
depriving the people of what is the most valuable possession any people 
can have. This condition is none the less deplorable because these 
who have thus been robbed are too stupid to be aware of their condi- 
tion, and too indifferent to care to exchange it for another, where unre- 
strained exercise of reason alone is their privilege and guide, for 
insensibility is the favorable condition for any species of oppression and 
robbery to be easily perpetrated, by those whose instincts and superior 
endowments cause them to gain and maintain such an ascendency over 
their victims, that they can both rule and rob them with impunity. A 



The Powerful Influence of the Priest Used. 119 

perfect equality on any large scale among human beings is not to be 
expected, and is not necessary in order to have all equally entitled to 
individual right, to liberty, to both the free exercise of the reason, with 
which he is endowed to think and express his thoughts, and a denial of 
the right to, by force, interfere with this right. 

The great evil connected with every form of religion, but more 
especially with the Christian form, is found in the desire and determina- 
tion of its authors and their successors, who always have and still do 
sustain the self-appointed position of priests of various grades, to, by 
force and fraud, deception and imposition, compel all mankind to also 
do their bidding, and believe as they direct them, instead of as they 
themselves would otherwise do, if left free to think and act without their 
instruction or interference, for no human being that ever existed, has 
any better facilities to ascertain or to predict what is beyond this life, 
than any other one of his associates has, and any assumption of such a 
right to influence by force or fraud, ought to have been in the past, and 
should be in the present, met with a stern refusal to be either persuaded 
or forced to believe, what his reason whether feeble or strong, tells him 
is absurd and impossible, but the cunning whelps who have always led 
and guided this imposition, have always seen that the reason must be 
both blinded by ignorance, and be perverted by superstition, and if too 
stubborn to be led by persuasion, or too indifferent to listen to instruc- 
tion, force was to be added to fraud, and compulsion must compel those 
who were indifferent to both listen and heed such instruction, as the 
priests choose to give. This instruction was by these priests, pretended 
to be derived direct from a book in their possession, of which God was 
the author, and which had been transmitted to them, and by them trans- 
lated into their own language. 

The original authors of this God revealed book, pretended to have 
been the scribes or secretaries, through whom the one God they wor- 
shipped transmitted, or directed them what to write, and consequently 
it must be not only free from error, but must be in its literal teaching 
accepted and observed by all people, through all future time, and also 
its instructions and commandments were to be communicated through 
the medium of an educated priesthood to the common people, and the 
consequence has been, that a half civilized people of a long previous 
age, living in the infancy of the development of learning, and knowing 
nothing of science, and very little about art, have succeeded in imposing 
on so much of the human race as have come under the influence of the 
Jewish and Christian instruction,, so profound a conviction of the truth 
of their claim of divine inspiration, that at the present time the Christian 
theologians assert, and enforce this claim, with all the energy that the 



120 The Skeptic's Defense. 

most profound belief is capable of producing. Very little stress is laid 
upon the old testament by Christians, in building their system, except 
in the historical and prophetic parts, the miraculous and moral are for 
the most part reproduced in the new testament, and the doctrinal fea- 
tures of the Christian system are nearly the Avhole, the inventors of the 
successive grades of ecclesiastical theologians who have flourished in 
recent times, and they have been so filled with bigotry and superstition, 
that they have always failed to see that intellectual uniformity is nowhere 
possible, and failing to realize this fact, they have applied force to the 
physical frame, to compel the intellect to believe any absurdity and 
imposition, the most ingenious fanatic could invent, and failing to con- 
vince the reason that one is three, and three is one, the argument of the 
thumb screw is applied. 

What is a thumb screw? It is two little pieces of iron, attached 
together by screws or bolts, of a shape to fit the thumbs, and when some 
man or woman said, he or she? did not believe the story of Jonah and 
the whale, which says that the whale swallowed Jonah to save him from 
drowning, then they put these two pieces of iron on his thumb, and then 
these priests who love their neighbors as themselves, began screwing 
these two pieces of iron together, for the purpose, as they tell him, of 
calling his attention to the subject, and when He suffers the agony of 
the damned, he says, write out what you want me to believe, one god or 
three hundred, or what not, and I will sign it, but stop this torture, but 
now and then they found a brave soul who would not yield up his rea- 
son, and then these gentlemen who were all forgiveness, or at least 
their master taught them to be, screwed this machine down to the lasi 
thread. Such is the Christian idea of liberty. Another instrument of 
torture, to compel uniformity of belief was, the one called the scav- 
enger's daughter, or an iron collar full inside of sharp points, which 
fastened on the neck of the one who was too stubborn to be convinced 
by an appeal to reason, that the sun and moon stood still at the com- 
mand of General Joshua, so that he might slaughter a few thousand 
more of his fellow men, when his reason enlightened by science, which 
told him the earth revolved on its axis, so rapid that the stop of a sec- 
ond would not only destroy both armies, and also the earth itself, 
refused to believe this untrue statement, the collar was then applied, 
and the result was slow torture, till death by suffocation came to the 
relief of the victim. This has been the fate of many, who could not, 
and would not, to avoid such a fate, sign the name to such a fraud; 
and this was done in the name of him who said, if smitten on one cheek 
turn the other, and also for spreading the gospel of eternal love and 
benevolence among all men. 



How Michael Servitus Was Murdered. 121 

Now, in view of what has been the reason why this force has been 
used, to produce a uniform belief of what has since been proved to 
always have been a lie, is it not monstrous, that the Christian church 
now not only justifies and approves what was done in the primitive 
church, but would repeat the same methods to produce uniformity as 
their ancestors did, if they could get the power, but their methods are 
now little if any better than they formerly were, but the worst methods 
of the past are yet to be delineated. The rack was used. What was the 
rack? An iron frame supplied with a windlass and crank, with chains 
to attach to the w r rists and ankles, so that when the crank was turned, 
the limbs were stretched apart, so as to dislocate the sockets and pro- 
duce intense agony, but a little short of death ; with a phvsician stand- 
ing by to feel his pulse. What for; to save his life? Yes. What for; 
for mercy? No, but simply that they might have the pleasure of racking 
him again. And this was done from the best of motives, in the name of 
universal love and forgiveness, not done simply to one or two hundred, 
but to hundreds of thousands, and this is only a beginning of the fruits 
of religious frenzy, and superstition by the highest sanction, and in com- 
pliance with the imperative command of the Pope himself, for the good 
of the victim. What a prodigious mistake somebody has made, which 
would now be repeated by the same authority for the same reason, if 
the power to do it was not wanting. 

For what reason did John Calvin cause a better man than himself to 
be burned alive, by the name of Michael Servitus, in as recent a time as 
the latter part of the sixteenth century? Because he called the Lord 
Jesus Christ, son of the eternal God. When Calvin commanded him to 
say, eternal son of God, and his sense of propriety caused him to refuse 
to yield his freedom, to regard Christ as merely the son of the eternal 
God, and not god the father, and for that only was Michael Servitus 
made fast to an iron post or stake, and burnt alive .by a slow fire of 
green wood and when the wind blew the dull flames somewhat away 
from his body, so that his sufferings were thus lengthened, he cried out 
to his merciful tormentor, Calvin, who was standing by rejoicing in his 
sufferings, to put the wood on the other side, that he might the sooner 
die, and Calvin and the savage crew who were there to do his bidding, 
refused to grant him his request, but looked on and derisively laughed 
at his helpless condition; but in the midst of flame and smoke he, true 
to his firm conviction, said, what many others before and since have said 
when near death, by violence, without any notice being taken of any 
such a request, Christ, Eternal son of God, have mercy upon me. Such 
is religious liberty as it is understood by Christians, a more inhuman 
set of savages was never found on earth, and the bigoted fanatic would 



122 The Skeptic's Defense. 

do the same to-day, if the hellish disposition was not restrained by a 
want of power; and it is actually being nursed and is put in force, so as 
to cause hatred, contempt and exclusion, to be felt by the priesthood of 
every form of Christianity, towards those who dare to question the truth 
of any of their theories, and it is consequently enough to know of any 
religious man his belief, to know also what point he has reached intel- 
lectually; and what his brain is worth to him or to the world. 

A man with a great brain will not have a mean and selfish religion, 
for such is only fit for the savage, who lives in a cave, or who sails over 
the river or lake in a canoe, dug out of a tree, which he deems to be suf- 
ficient, and scorns the idea of any improvements on it. As civilization 
advances, with or without reference to religion of any or every kind, a 
demand springs up for improvement, in all directions where improve- 
ment is possible ; and we want a better sailing craft than a dug out, and 
we want better music than he of the dug out could furnish, and we 
want better books, than such as were once, for want of better materials, 
written on leaves of trees, on the shoulder blades of sheep, or on the 
skins of wild beasts, or even on vellum or parchment; for when we com- 
pare such rude methods of preserving records, or of transmitting infor- 
mation with the illustrated periodicals of our day, with what was satis- 
factory to the ancients, living in caves and tents, we have no desire to 
be remanded back to their era; and in sculpture, such images as are 
found, which were the rude efforts of the best artists of the time of the 
dug out, which attempted to give expression of the idea of God, derived 
from a previous mythology, having five or six heads, many ears, and 
many rows of eyes, and then compare these with the best specimens of 
Greek sculpture, whose models were so perfect, that it was considered, 
that an introduction was necessary to give the beholder the right to 
speak to them; and extend the same comparison to painting, or archi- 
tecture, and to nearly all branches of science or learning, immense 
progress has been made; but how is it in religion? The world has held 
out all the inducements, all the rewards in its possession, to get an 
improved religion. But the religious priest and fanatic, who always 
had control of this mechanism, said No ! That fellow in the dug out 
had a religion, derived from his priest, who in turn traced his authority 
back to God's throne, which was orthodox. It had not God alone for 
a foundation, for it had also a personal, real devil, and the conception of 
this God, or this devil, has never been ,so much as imagined possible to 
be improved upon ; and no improvement is either expected or desired. 

The miserable Christian bigot says, that his religion, which sends at 
least ninety-five out of every hundred of the human race to an endless 
hell of torment, is good enough, and cannot be made more satisfactory, 



Wine Was Never Made Out of Water. 123 

and they term all who as much as question its origin or quality, ignor- 
ant blasphemers. The world has said in the past, give us better ships, 
better music, better cloth, better books, better everything; and the world 
has long said, and it yet says, give us a better religion, one that produces 
better results, for notwithstanding many superior advantages, are found 
under a Christian so-called civilization; and it is traced to other causes 
than a religious cause, there is not found on the earth, one form, where 
so great, both in quantity and degree of vice is found, as in Christian 
lands; and goes wherever Christianity goes, to neutralize and corrupt 
such feeble moral precepts as the Christian missionary seeks to give 
them, in exchange for a system which they have, and which is satisfac- 
tory, and in fact much preferable to this. 

No imagination is strong enough to characterize in language ade-^ 
quate, the impudence of any human being, claiming the right to think 
for himself, who will not concede it to other people, who are as well 
qualified to judge of its truth, or value as he is. If I have not the right 
who has? Can I get the right by uniting with a few other people in 
building a little church, with a steeple pointing the soul to heaven; and 
a bell in it? If each individual has not the right of private judgment, 
then combined they have not the right. If each individual being on 
the whole earth has not the equal right of every ether to think, then the 
whole world must be denied the right to his thoughts, All we skeptics 
claim as a right, is, to be honest with himself and not pretend to others 
because it is expedient to do so, that he believes what he does not, for 
then he is like the hypocrite. There was once in my experience a gen- 
tleman, apparently, a nice man and a minister, who asked me in public, 
what kind of quality of wine it was that Jesus made out of water, at the 
marriage in Cana of Galilee, whether or not it would produce intoxica- 
tion. I replied I did not believe there ever was any wine made at all 
out of water, or any other way. Then you do not believe the Bible, for, 
it says there was; for surely any being who could, and did many times 
raise the dead, could surely make wine from water. I say the dead 
never was, and they never will be raised, was my reply to that. And 
such a tirade of abuse as followed this admission, and such a reply, was 
a lesson to that audience that will never be matched or forgotten. Sup- 
pose I go to Turkey, or Arabia, and the Mahometan priest hands me a 
Koran, and says to me read it, and I read it, carefully, and they ask 
me, do you believe it? What ought I to say to preserve my man- 
hood, if I did not believe it, no matter whether I wanted office in 
Turkey or not? Why, of course you will say. to me, say to the Turkish 
priest boldly, you do not believe it to be anything but the wild dream of 
an ignorant fanatic, who had both the ambition and ability to impose 



124 The Skeptic's Defense. 

on an ignorant rabble, and to begin a new religion, and his success is 
no proof of either its truth or value, and it never had any better origin 
than in his feeble and fanatical brain, and that of others who were his 
associates in this fraud. Well then, when I am in the United States of 
America, and read carefully and thoroughly the book the Christian 
priest hands me, which he tells me is divinely inspired revelation, 
directly emanating from the living God, and when I get through and do 
not believe it, what shall I say? The people among whom I live and 
whose good opinion I highly prize, for I agree with them on most other 
questions, say to me, you had best say nothing; for it will be better for 
both you and us if you keep still. This I reply is intellectual slavery. I 
prefer freedom to comfort, and when you destroy the liberty of mind, it 
has the same effect on the progress of the 1 world, as it would have on 
the progress of the Mississippi river, if you destroy all the streams that 
empty into it; and if you could destroy all the fountains that feed the 
oceans, they would become sand; so it is with the information of the 
world; it comes from individual brains, they are the springs and 
fountains, that have prevented as far as the church would permit, 
mental stagnation; and it is the imperative duty, and ought to 
be his privilege, to tell all he knows, but nothing he don't know, 
that he may thus add to the sum of human knowledge, to which 
all have contributed, and from which all may draw. If there is a 
heaven, and in it an infinite being or god, he never was, and he never 
will be satisfied, with the worship and adoration of cowards and hypo- 
crites. Honest unbelief will and should be a perfume in heaven, and 
hypocrisy, no matter how religious it may seem to be outwardly, will, 
and ought to be a stench intolerable, and that is all there is to it. 

Give every other human being all the chance to think and express 
his thoughts you claim for yourself, and keep your minds free and open 
tj the voices and demands of nature, to new ideas, to new thoughts, 
originating with yourself or others, and to improve upon your former 
beliefs, or doctrines whenever you can. But in advancing we are begin- 
ning to hold all kinds of slavery of the mind in contempt, and abhor- 
rence, we are beginning to question wealth and power; we also are 
beginning and threatening to demolish as well as question, all creeds 
and dogmas, and we in free America are not bowing down to a man 
as we used in former times to do, simply because he is dressed in the 
robe of a priest, or a king, or titled, or even rich. Every thinking man 
is simply amazed, when he thinks of how much every people in past 
ages has suffered on account of his feeling of inferiority, and unworthi- 
ness to hold up his head in the presence of his associates, who, in every 
sense were no better than himself, for when you look back a few years, 



The Priest the Bulwark of Slavery. 125 

you see the most highly civilized and Christianized two nations on the 
earth, in the full participation, in both the possession and the procuring 
millions of negroes, who were held, after being stolen and sold to the 
masters in the most horrible and abject slavery the world has ever seen, 
for it was not till eighteen hundred and eight, that England and the 
United States of America abolished the slave trade, as far as lawful 
traffic in slaves who were imported, was concerned. 

Up to that time, the judges in both countries, who sat upon the 
bench in the name of justice and right conduct, between man and 
man ; the priests occupying the pulpits and preaching universal love and 
good will, owned stock in slave ships, and participated and luxuriated 
in the profits of piracy and murder. The United States, while com- 
pelled to abolish the slave trade between this and other countries, pre- 
served between the states by that infernal law called the Fugitive slave 
law, the most diabolical traffic in slave breeding, kidnapping, and in 
selling kidnapped negroes who were enticed into the slave states and 
seized, and sold, and this ungodly traffic was aided, abetted, encouraged 
and excused, by the most holy orthodox ministers; and it was not 
until the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, that 
President Abraham Lincoln put away from our flag, the stigma and 
disgrace of slavery. And still, after thirty years of legalized freedom of 
all slaves, the rascally priests, and former slave owners, have conspired 
together to deny every right to the blacks, that both force and fraud can 
invent; and this is all done to gain a political advantage, over a party 
who are both willing and determined, that political freedom shall at 
least be universal in this free country, and lashes upon the bare back, 
or the withholding of religious freedom, shall no longer be the equiva- 
lent of labor performed, for labor will not always, as it has heretofore, 
live in a hut, that capital may live in a palace. 

This denial of the right of every man to have such religious belief, as 
his reason requires him to have, or none at all, is all the result of priest- 
craft; for there never was a preist of any form of religion that was any- 
thing but an impostor, both knowingly and wilfully; and no form of 
religion can prove one of the fundamental doctrines on which its creed 
is built, but by mere assertion or assumption ; and' therefore one asser- 
tion of denial of the imposition of priestcraft, is just as good and true, 
as the affirmative assertion of the priest, it is all a useless jargon of 
words, and the world would have been infinitely better ,ofr, if no religion 
had ever been invented, and it is both the right, and duty, of every 
reformer, to destroy the influence of all religious instruction, as far as 
his ability and opportunity will permit. 

Much controversy, and misapprehension is had on the subject of 



126 The Skeptic's Defense. , 

matter and mind, how they are related as to priority; for both sides 
of the controversy agree that both matter and mind are combined to 
fcrm all animal existence, and other forms of matter that are not capable 
of themselves of motion, are nothing more than lifeless matter. 
The theist to establish the existence of his God, is obliged to place 
him before matter, and make him immaterial, or a mere spirit or infinite 
uncreated mind, with the ability to create matter, and endow such 
matter as required such endowment with mind, to meet its wants or 
necessities. The atheist, on the other hand, insists that spirit, or mind, 
or intelligence, which ever you please to name it, is in the same need of 
an originator as matter needed, and if anything in more imperative 
need; for mind is more of an intricate and mysterious a nature than 
matter, and cannot be conceived or imagined when it is separated from 
matter, for it is absolutely unthinkable. Every form of animal life, 
originates in the accumulation of some form of matter, of such imper- 
ceptible minuteness, that it is scarcely perceptible or imperceptible with- 
out mechanical assistance. A mere germ, which commences to devel- 
ope by accumulating and appropriating such matter as is adapted to 
cause it to expand and enlarge, till maturity is reached, beyond which 
it is impossible to go, but the germ and the embryo never has any mind 
or motion, till matter has been chemically provided with suitable ingre- 
dients, to spontaneously produce motion in spite of and without the 
assistance of its parent matter, when mind commences to develop, weak 
and imperceptible at first, but at birth, when ushered into a world where 
atmospheric air is inhaled, and its blood nourished with the elements ot 
which the air is composed, the mind developes with the body, and also 
reaches its limit of expansion in all animals, but man, when the body is 
mature; because in a state of nature, man alone is capable of instruction 
by his own species, who have by experience and observation, been 
advanced to a condition to be able to assert, and maintain a superior 
position, among all animals ; and also to be capable of supplying himself 
with such comforts and luxuries as his condition has enabled him to 
desire and require. 

Any person who has observed the helpless and dependent condition 
of the human infant, is aware, that no animal is more helpless at its 
birth than it is, and the gradual progress of intelligence, is wholly due 
to the sustaining nourishment derived from matter, but its superiority 
over other animals, comes from its capacity to receive and retain 
impressions from surrounding objects, which impress, and at the same 
time instruct, so as to gradually raise the human animal above all 
others, in some, but not in all directions. One of the reasons and may 
be the only reason why the human animal is sufficiently intelligent to 



The Myth or Legend of Adam and Eve. 127 

dominate and control all other animal life is the development of the 
intellectual faculty, by the process of mixture of the several breeds, 
tribes and races of men who inhabit widely separated regions, and by a 
successive and long continued inter-breeding, produce some few speci- 
mens, who develope superior mental capacities, some of both sexes, so 
much above the general average, that in time the product of these super- 
ior specimens, are able to invent systems of government, of religion, of 
social and government improvement, so that after this gradual process 
of developing from the best specimens of humanity, in long periods of 
past ages, before human history begins, mental progress had produced, 
and have since produced individuals, so far above the general average 
in capacity, that they were, and are still, able to exercise enough control 
over the masses, to be willingly acknowledged as guides and examples 
of virtue and intelligence. 

This process seems to have been confined to the human animal, for 
as far as we are at present able to ascertain, all other animals continue 
to be stationary, and nearly uniform from age to age, refusing to mix or 
amalgamate with other species, and by continual breeding in and with 
nearly related males and females, have a tendency to deteriorate, and 
finally disappear, for want of the vigor and the ability to produce their 
like, as well as also for want of favorable conditions. The legend recorded 
in the Christians' Bible, introduces to the student of history as the first 
specimen of a complete human pair, Adam and Eve, who, if produced 
at all were produced in the manner that every animal has always been 
produced, but they were the first to arrive at sufficient development, to 
find a place in history, and to propagate other individuals, who in time 
also secured a name and a place in the succession of several generations 
in history. Whether real or merely legendary every reader is at liberty 
unless restrained by priestly influence, to decide for himself, till finally 
we reach Noah, who was conspicuous enough to get the designation of 
preacher of righteousness, but we have no specimen of any of his ser- 
mons, which is an unpardonable oversight on the part of his biographer, 
but it is evident that his preaching was about as good and successful as 
that of the preachers had always been, for he could do no more than 
save himself and family from drowning, and thus save the germ, from 
which a new race was developed to enable the creator to try another 
experiment, with another human family, which under better conditions 
might produce better results. The first specimen of this newly organ- 
ized people, who through many generations and many vicissitudes of 
progress had enabled them to produce one worthy to find a large place in 
the history of the people that afterwards claimed him for their ancestor, 
which we call Jews, was Abraham; signifying father of the faithful. 



128 The Skeptic's Defense. 



His history has been continued through many generations of progress 
and development, till finally one more conspicuous than he was, has 
come on the stage, whose name was Moses, signifying law giver, who 
discovered, and, as far as we can perceive he was the first one to make 
this discovery, and to profit by it, which discovery is that men, vain and 
fanatical, receive without difficulty the most chimerical fables and tom- 
fooleries. 

This little word eternity, for instance, though not first invented by 
Moses, always renders men otherwise stubborn and quarrelsome, 
benign and peaceful; and by this and similar means, the whole of a 
stupid people, are rejoiced, when they are to have the privilege to kiss 
the ligature by which they are strangled, and it was by such a miserable 
stupid lie, that Moses knew how to fix secure the restless spirit of the 
Hebrews of his day, and the Jews of all subsequent times, and take cap- 
tive their credulity, by ranging his politic laws by the standard of the 
divinity, or god given, or in other words, as we call it, inspiration ; for he 
pretended to have seen on a distant mountain, celestial visions, such as 
the burning bush, which burned with great fury, and yet was not con- 
sumed or even scorched; and from which the voice of God told him, to 
take the shoes off from his feet, when no shoes had ever been invented 
in many ages after his time. He gave those who were only the merest 
rustics to understand, and compelled them to believe, that the infinite 
God ki his majesty and splendor, had appeared before his dazzled eyes. 
He showed them authentic, God made and engraved stone tables, 
recording his will or laws. He supported by pathetic solemn tones of a 
well modulated voice, as the holy priests now do, to impress the ignor- 
ant multitude who listen to their prayers, that it is a solemn privilege, 
to be allowed to address directly, the great creator and preserver of all 
things; and these tales were so well invented, that the entire people 
were enchanted as well as deceived by these tomfooleries,so that cunning 
falsehood passing for truth, and substituted for truth, firmly established 
the authority of that rascally impostor and legislator Moses, and has 
given the most unquestioned belief and currency, to all the egregious 
errors concerning God, by which, and through which, the world, or 
that portion of it which has come under its baneful influence has always 
been infected ; and, notwithstanding all this, so much progress has now 
been made, that unquestioning religious belief as it has been formerly 
held and taught by theologians, is very nearly extinct, in at least every 
Christian country, and one now seldom meets a young man, who does 
not wish privately in his inner consciousness, to himself be included 
among outspoken professed atheists; but the strangest part of it all is, 
that the very person who wishes, he dare profess atheism in the week 






How the Skeptic Answers Great Questions. 129 

days, plays outwardly the saint on the Sunday, not thinking that this is 
both hypocrisy and deception; especially those in the Roman church, 
who are there for the most part, because they were born of Catholic 
parents, and then trained and instructed by Catholic priests, not for a 
moment suspecting, that the same Roman church has always been, and 
now is the fertile mother of the most infernal tyranny the world has ever 
seen ; and it is because the intellect of the great mass who comes under 
that abominable tyranny, are prevented from becoming mature enough 
to be able to throw off this tyranny, or even to so much as discover its 
diabolical nature. 

If it is asked me, What think you then of the human soul, and of the 
great questions, such as eternity, or a future life, free will, and many 
more of like import? I reply, I think nothing, or if I have any thought 
upon it, or them, it is that we, poor insignificant worms, called by way 
of distinction humanity, are under the same power and influence, as 
both the stars and the mote that floats in the air, and is only made 
visible in the light of the sunbeams, are, and that power, whatever 
name you give it, I care not, whether it be God, or Nature, works by 
general inevitable and unchangeable laws, and "not by my views or 
direction, or your views and wishes, entirely disregarding all such trifles 
as human desires, and never listens to any petition, or even adoration, 
wholly indifferent to either worship or blasphemy, and has only regard 
for truth, having made that so radiant, that it can shine by its own light. 
Consequently human minds never have been, and they never can be 
enlightened, by the flames by which the church in all its past history has 
vainly tried to extinguish, what science can and did always teach and 
demonstrate, and he who is not enlightened by the sublime truths ol 
science, discerns both the puerility, and the foolish and criminal absurd- 
ities of all sectarian controversies, and he who is so enlightened, turns 
away from them, with both horror and disgust. 

Religion, being altogether false, when it rages with inhuman zeal, 
arms every hand, and sharpens the point of every steel weapon, but to 
every lover of truth and freedom, and hater of imposition and tyranny, 
it will belong, and remain a sacred duty, to prove both these theological 
disputants wrong; for, of whatever names divine the disputing parties 
claim, either in exaggeration or craft, and many times in devilish hate to 
all truth, they are both the same fiends. We must all realize, sooner or 
later, and it can be none too soon, that our priests, and also all priests, 
are not what they seem to be, and are far short of what their foolish 
dupes imagine them to be, for they are all indebted to the credulity of 
mankind for all their seeming superior virtue, and have reduced theol- 
ogy to a seeming science, but only such in consequence of this very 



130 The Skeptic's Defense. 

credulity; for it all rests on the most unwarranted assumption as its 
foundation. The great fundamental mistake, or if you so please, error 
of mankind, in respect to religious beliefs, is found to be in the first 
place, regarding any book as sacred or holy; and, in the second place, 
in not regarding them as legends, and not history, for as mere legends 
they may possess to some minds some beauty, and a seeming value, as 
for instance; what a folly to suppose that the creator of men could not 
restrain them, when permitted to exercise the perfect faculties with 
which they were in the first place by the creator endowed, so as to 
entirely prevent the utter failure of the experiment, and not necessitate 
the extermination of the race by drowning, and then beginning in 
another way a new race, which turned out no better than the first experi- 
ment, and after waiting, and at infinite pains, by selecting and cultivat- 
ing a nation as a model for all others, and directing them for many 
thousand years, in order to save the world, which was, in spite of all 
restraining influences, constantly growing worse, this same God who 
created and preserved, also cultivated, and by every means sought to 
improve, and finally himself died, without in any way, or in any degree 
succeeding in reclaiming the race from folly or wickedness, by either or 
both methods combined, resulting in nothing but utter hopeless failure, 
and if this is only treated as legend, and not as history, no great harm is 
done. 

Many such legends are required to be treated, but only one other 
is worthy to find a place in this writing, and that is that astonishing, 
bewildering legend, which the four gospels delineate, and on which 
the Christian church edifice in a figurative sense is built. This legend of 
Christ crucified and risen, is in like manner, and for a like purpose, 
designedly held up by all grades of Christian priests, as history, when 
it is admitted by both unconfirmed, and also absolutely incredible, 
which is briefly in this manner. The, eternal God must needs have a 
son, but needed no wife, by whom this son might or could be born in 
the usual way, so, instead he must come from an obscure people, and at 
a time in the history of these people, when they were not only obscure 
but imbecile, and unstable, insensate lovers of superstition,, conquered 
and held in bondage and subjection by their neighbors, crouching in 
political slavery to them, and the loathing and contempt of all nations 
by whom they were known. This infinite son, of the infinite God, or 
God himself, so to speak, for how else can you speak with propriety, is, 
in this way made the countryman of this odious people, and be con- 
ceived, by, as the legend asserts, the Holy Ghost, which up to this time 
was never introduced among the children of men, and in a suitable time, 
born of a Jewish peasant virgin, unmarried maiden, and like other 



Why it is Proper to Ridicule the Priest. 131 

infants, he creeps about his mother, and receives from her his care and 
nourishment; and suffers under her eyes all the infirmities of infancy 
and childhood ; afterwards, a low mechanic ; with the tools in hand that 
were required for his vocation, and finally for many years becomes lost, 
in this respectable, but in some sense considering the dignity of the sub- 
ject, i;s a base employment. After many years, he emerges again from 
obscurity, but never attracts influence, or even notice from the portion 
of his contemporaries who were above the grade to which he belonged, 
and in one year is put to death, as his biographers assert, by crucifixion 
as a malefactor, which signifies a troublesome person, and finally rises 
from the grave, and is seen to go up into a cloud, in the same way as a 
baloon goes; and this legend there stops, for want of ability to go fur- 
ther, and yet the priests upon this silly legend, which has not the first 
element of either probability, or possibility, to give it a right to find a 
lodgment in any human intellect of the lowest grade, it has, under the 
manipulation of the priest, and dots, and always will consign to eternal 
damnation, every individual who has ever dared to doubt any portion 
of this silly legend, or refuse to receive it as not only historically true, 
but the inspired word of God, and implicitly believe its unproved and, 
wholly unfounded assumptions. 

Better is it, and far more sensible, to reject this fable or legend, 
and if you must without anything on which to found such belief, 
still must from analogy or any other reason, believe in a future life, and 
in some form of religion believe that the infinite wisdom of the 
most high, has,with his own hand, engraved at the bottom of thy inmost 
being, a natural religion; which is the ability to distinguish between 
right and wrong, and believe, that the native candor of thy inmost con- 
ception of right and wrong, will not be the cause and object of your 
creator's eternal hate. Believe also, that before his throne, in all times, 
and in all places, and conditions, the motives and conduct of a just 
person, is precious, instead of believing the priest, who says it is hateful 
and finally believe if you must believe in a God at all, believe that he 
will judge of your life, by its holy virtues, instead of your foolish, worth- 
less sacrifices, and learn also to despise both the pictured horrors of the 
tomb, and the hopes on the one hand, and the terorrs on the other, of a 
future life. One of the most convincing and reasonable ways to regard 
the absurdities which oblige religious bigots to invent some way out or 
their difficulties, which they unavoidably will encounter when they 
attempt to reconcile the declarations of the word of God with the con- 
flicting teaching of science, is, by holding the said absurdities up to 
contempt and ridicule. This mode is both proper and justifiable, as a 
retaliatory method, but not in any other sense. 



]32 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Such an instance is found, when the aforesaid bigot is called upon by 
the scientist, to reconcile the account found in the beginning of Genesis, 
of the creation of the world and all things therein, and the whole uni- 
verse besides in six literal days, by names, first, second, third, etc., days, 
with the indefinite geological periods, which the science of geology 
requires to account for the successive formations of the different strata 
or layer of rocks, which, one above another in regular order, form the 
crust of the earth, and which encloses the liquid material, from which is 
derived the material which escapes from volcanic eruptions. Only a 
few of the most advanced theological professors, even now will admit, 
that days as they are called in scripture may be construed to mean, 
indefinite periods of time, and thus they pretend to hope or expect to 
reconcile revelation with science, when their feeble intellect fails to per- 
ceive, or comprehend that if he is to call the term translated. days in one 
place indefinite periods, he must also do the same in all places in which 
time is alluded to, either as days or years, even, and therefore those 
theologians who still uphold the old notion of six days, as we regard 
days, which is the period of one revolution of the earth, are far the most 
consistent, for just reflect a momennt, what confusion arises when you 
admit that Noah had been notified of the flood one hundred and twenty 
years multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days, six hours, eleven 
minutes and fifty seconds, and call every day an indefinite period, and 
then have six times, as much time for the creation, and what would be 
the result, and then the rain, of forty indefinite periods of millions of 
ages each, and so on without end; Jonah in the whale, Christ in the 
tomb, each three millions of ages or indefinite periods. No ! Gentlemen, 
you can't reconcile the Bible with science, for the Bible is full of error, 
and science is truth itself, as far, and no farther than demonstration can 
prove it to be true; anything less than truth is not strictly science, but 
science in embryo. 

Another of the most foolish and absurd practice of all forms of 
religion, well meriting contempt, and all the ridicule possible to expose 
its hypocritical nature and pretensions, is the use made, and the reli- 
ance put, upon that foolish and unproductive of all the mummeries 
called prayer, for a prayer made by a machine, if one could be invented 
similar to a watch, or music box, which goes by a spring, which would 
recite a prayer, the result would be the same, as the same words uttered 
by the most gifted and sincere vocal utterance, of the most devout and 
falsely instructed dupe, of any rascally priests, in both cases, entirely 
without any value. Do you say faith is required, which no machine 
can have? Can faith produce rain in a rainless desert, if not, why not? 
Can faith cure an incurable malady, or avert pain, if the cause is not 



Why Don't God Answer Prayer. 133 

removed like an aching tooth or broken bone either in yourself or 
another? A thousand times No! not if all the energy of the roaring 
voice of the most gifted and highly endowed intellect, should be con- 
centrated on one object, and all the faith exercised by all the most 
faithful from Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Paul, down to Beecher, Tal- 
mage, and Spurgeon, could one particle of change be made, from what 
nature decreed. 

But the praying dupe of these ungodly priests, when they fail to 
get any response to their petitions, and complains to the' priest, and is 
inclined to doubt whether, after all prayer is of any use, is told to wart 
in hope and patience; for God has put a sure promise in writing in 
his holy word, meaning the Bible; which is definite and sure, in these 
words : " Ask and ye shall receive," putting a strong emphasis on the 
word " shall," and also another, "For every one that asketh receiveth," 
but I, in unbelief contend, that in the face of all this deception and 
imposition, that it is an evidence, the most positive and unmistakable 
that can be produced, of the mo.it consumate imbecility, for any mortal 
to beg for some favor,and to promise all kinds of unreasonable obedience 
upon the receipt of that favor, only to make that treaty or agreement 
null and void, when you say, " But, O Lord, Thou knowest what is best 
for us, the insignificant work of thy mighty hand, and then humbly 
adding the words, that the Evangelist Luke says, Christ added to his 
prayer, when he asked his heavenly father to save his life, or to let, if 
possible, this cup pass from him, and then added, " Nevertheless, not my 
will, but Thine be done." That, or a like acquiescence releases the 
object or being to whom the petition is addressed from all obligation of 
fulfilling this, or any other promise; but if any one was bold enough 
to make a comment like the one made above, he would expose himself 
to mob violence, and, in the past, in the outrageous history of the 
Christian church, many thousands have been burned at the stake, for a 
much less criticism of the beliefs and methods of the priests, and sus- 
picion of a want of agreement in religious belief, has been enough to 
justify the perpetration of some of the most outrageous acts of cruelty 
and violence, to the best men in any age or country, for it can be fully 
proved, if anybody doubts the charge, that there is nothing more cruel 
than to be by these holy fanatics suspected of irreligion. It is an accu- 
sation from which it would be in vain to even endeavor to escape from 
the odium of such suspicion, and it will last as long as life itself, and 
when the victim has been dead hundreds of years, the bigoted successors 
of these fanatics, who were the contemporaries of the infidel of former 
times, will continue to assail his character, and blacken his memory, 
and retail the most outrageous lies and misrepresentations as to his 



134 The Skeptic's Defense. 

teachings, and in most cases lyingly assert that he recanted at the last 
moment, when it was too late. 

Therefore it is necessary that extreme care and circumspection be used 
in the presence of these dotards called priests, to avoid their abuse and 
hate, for the Christian church in particular, and most likely all others, 
are full of priests, having eyes and tongues full of sweetness, or heaven 
in their eyes, and hell in their disposition and conduct, for they have 
always inspired and encouraged hallowed assassination, in all their 
religious wars, and persecutions. No characteristic of priestly craft of 
every species of false religion (and they are all false), is more evident 
than this; that the founders of all these false systems while they practice 
upon the docile credulity of their dupes, they at the same time despise 
both the dupq and his credulity, and inwardly gloat and make merry 
over it, for they declare in so many acts as well as in so many words, 
that the masses of the people, blind and feeble, are only born to admire, 
to believe, and to obey us; for our spirits, vast and firm in their struc- 
ture and designs, have a natural right to domineer over the dull, stupid 
souls of common men. 

Your first and only duty, rash and inconsiderate men, is, to believe 
us teachers to you, of Christianity, without either thought or question, 
for to deliberate, or hesitate, is rank sacrilege. The priest, in his acts, 
and also in his words, is something after this style: Let no mortal 
but us be bold enough to judge of divine truth, or even read it for them- 
selves, or attempt to use their mental eyes or reason, for whoever dares 
to investigate, or even think, is not fit to be my disciple; your whole 
duty is to obey in silence. Do you know who and what I am? or 
from what source I got my right and authority to instruct you in the 
commands of heaven? Calvary is a sacred spot. Do you know for 
what reason? I tell you no lie when I say to you, it is because Christ 
Jesus died there, and from there was raised from the dead, and 
ascended to heaven. Believe me, because I have received this informa- 
tion from the unproved assertion, of an unknown gospel writer, but as 
he wrote from divine direction, as I assert, but can't prove, to doubt 
you should not only be stoned to death, but eternally damned. 

If such a story is related as a mere legend, I admit its use as a figure, 
but if it is related as history or fact, I deny its truth, and demand proof 
adequate to produce conviction, for I am most clearly, and also confi- 
dently of the opinion, that it is every one's duty to think with their own 
minds, and having done that, to believe only what is either distinctly 
and clearly proved, or is in harmony with the known nature of things, 
and having done this themselves, to concede the same right to all men 
without reserve or restraint. Very few people are aware what an intol- 



Why Are So Many Priests Required. 135 

erable burden, as well as an unnecessary nuisance it is, to be obliged to 
find the means to support in idleness and luxury, such an army of 
priests as the Roman Catholic church alone has always required and 
had, and now has to conduct the intricate machinery, ecclesiastical, of 
that one branch of the Christian church. The last United States census 
reveals the startling fact, that although there are one hundred and sixty- 
seven separate branches of the Christian church in the United States, 
the Roman branch alone, has more priests of the various grades than 
all others combined, when their adherents are not one-third of the whole 
number. This result is vastly exceeded in Europe, for history no fur- 
ther back than the beginning of the eighteenth century, in seventeen 
hundred and twenty-two,the Duchess of Marlborough writes from Flan- 
ders, to her friends in England, as follows: "Life of Voltaire, page 
149." "My time is passed in this place, for the most part, in visiting 
nunneries and churches, where I have heard of such marvels, and seen 
such ridiculous things, as would appear to you incredible if I should 
attempt to describe them, it is so much beyond what I ever saw or 
heard of in England,of that religion which, I am sure, has made all the 
Atheists that are in the world, for it is impossible to see all the abuses of 
these priests, without raising strange thoughts in one's mind, for in one 
church where I was lately, there were twenty-seven jolly-faced priests, 
that had nothing in the world to do, but to say mass for the living, and 
to take the dead souls the sooner out of purgatory by their prayers." 
What a repulsive picture this is, but it is only a sample, and one of the 
best samples that might be unearthed. If convents and monasteries 
could be investigated, and their secrets disclosed ; a tale of horrors would 
be revealed too shocking to virtue and modesty, to be credible. 

It was no doubt a very sad day for that portion of the human race 
that has been made aware of that imposition called Christianity, when 
that being they call Christ was born, if ever he was born, and if not, 
still more sad, for those who claim to be authorized to declare the 
commands of heaven and to be the interpreters of the divine will. I 
mean the theologians, because they are the most dangerous class of all, 
when considered as a body or in the aggregate, for it may be conceded 
without doubt, there are some few in so large a number, who desire to 
be upright and honest, but their number is so small when compared to 
the whole, that their influence is imperceptible. The great body of 
theologians, are as dangerous, and as pernicious to society, as they are 
obscure in their ideas; and that means much; and in addition to all that, 
their little souls are so puffed up with pride and envy, that they are 
entirely destitute of either truth or candor, for they would disturb, and, 
if possible, distract the peace of the earth, for an abstraction or a soph- 



136 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ism, and would compel all the kings of the earth, to avenge by sword 
and fire, the honor of the weak argument, about a subject of no import- 
ance whatever. Every thinking being who is not of their way of think- 
ing is by them called an Atheist, and every king who does not favor 
them will and ought to be eternally damned. They deserve to be all 
abandoned as enemies of the race. Their words, when they are disre- 
garded are lost in the air, but when the weight of authority is enlisted in 
their support, their empty wind, sometimes, in the past, has acquired a 
force sufficient to overturn thrones and dynasties, and prevent their 
reorganization, till such concessions were made to them as they chose 
to demand. The shrewd sagacity of the theologians in the early his- 
tory of this free country, politically so, at least, discovered, that on 
account of negligence on their part, the acknowledgment of God in the 
constitution had been omitted, and they have never been able to correct 
that blunder of theirs, and never will be, for every year diminishes the 
prospect of success, but they have atoned in some measure for that first 
neglect, by, in the state constitutions of some states, incorporating such 
a God clause, and also have procured the enactment of many laws in 
their favor in some states, such as exemption of church property from 
taxation, a scheme of robbery, that obliges the poor dupe, who gave out 
of his hard earnings at the urgent and the persistent solicitation of the 
priest, the money with which these were built, to also pay a tax on his 
poor home, larger by the sum so exempted by this unjust law, from 
what it would have been if the church property had been included in the 
general assessment, and this extortion is justified when the poor man 
complains, in the lying assurance that what he gives the church is treas- 
ure laid up in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, or thief 
like this priest steal. 

Another cunningly devised law, making it a crime to break the 
Sabbath, designed in part to operate with severity on the Jews, to com- 
pel them to either suspend business two days every week, or else adopt 
the first day of the week instead of the seventh, in which to worship 
God. And for another, and that the main reason, to oblige those who 
felt the need of religious instruction, to attend church in a body, and be 
taught in a wholesale manner, such teaching as the priest might deem 
suitable for them to have. These same hypocrites, who look with 
approbation on and gladly patronize the street car service, because they 
can reach church in a comfortable way, by using and profiting by the 
work of the street car operatives, look with holy horror on a poor news- 
boy, who is endeavoring to earn a few pennies by the sale of Sunday 
papers, and trying in every mean way, by advising church people to not 
patronize them, and so diminish their sales, and in some cases com- 



The Force of An Unworthy Habit. 13? 

peJlingf them to stop, when their sole object was, to try to get them into 
the Sunday-school to there be instructed that the Sabbath clay is too 
holy, and sacred to admit of its being used for the advance of any sec- 
ular interest. It is wonderful to the thoughtful mind, not tainted or 
influenced in even a slight degree by superstition, to witness the incon- 
sistencies that a belief in the supernatural inevitably cause the well mean- 
ing, and in some respects, intelligent individuals, who allow themselves 
to be influenced by 2 and to some times indulge in, not apparently seeing 
their conduct to be inconsistent with their profession, being blinded by 
self-interest, so as to overlook the important fact, that most of their 
scruples are the result of the training they have received from their ances- 
tors, and who in turn also received from their ancestors similar instruc- 
tion, and so on back into a remote past, when circumstances and condi- 
tions were such, as to in some sense, justify such practices and beliefs 
as are now entirely unsuited to a different condition. Every thought- 
ful person who will allow his reasoning faculties full exercise, can, 
without difficulty, trace the most of the, to him, abhorrent ceremonies 
and beliefs back into a remote past, and by study of history of peoples 
and institutions as they then existed, find a valid reason or a reason sat- 
isfactory to those who hold these abhorrent opinions which, while it has 
no other merit than its antiquity, is still clung to with tenacity. 

To a rude and semi-barbarous and stupid imbecile people the force 
of habit will be indulged in and transmitted to their posterity till these 
habits and usages will in time become laws, and seem to be a binding 
force to restrain and guide' human wills, and at this point the leaders 
and reformers, or in other words, the priests of that period guide the 
multitudes into these paths which their sacred feet have trod so hard for 
the multitude that to walk in them is easy and agreeable, and, in a little 
while they are both unwilling and incapable of walking in any other, 
their thoughts being too weak to examine as to quality, become fixed 
in such dogmas and doctrines, as these priests have decreed are the 
most suitable both for the people and themselves to have prevail, and 
these doctrines, untrue and inconsistant as they always are, finally 
harden into creeds, and thoughtless habits of worship finally grow into 
rites, ceremonies finally ripen into sacraments, and then the piles of con- 
venient costly buildings become cathedrals, temples, or fanes, which are 
dedicated by these priests to become the dwelling place of the Holy 
Ghost, and therefore too sacred and awful to be trod by any but conse- 
crated and devout feet and are the repositories of shrines and images, 
pictures and statuaries, and these are transmitted to succeeding genera- 
tions becoming permanent, and in addition to all. this the books, these 
primitive people heard read, in these sanctuaries, by their priests, who 



138 The Skeptic's Defense. 

alone could read, or had books, became in time, holy books, or the Holy 
Bible, the only books they ever had, then so become holy to their appre- 
hension, and they were instructed to so regard them, hence in no ver^ 
long time that which was at first floating and transient, changeable and 
visionary, became stable, chronic and everlasting, and what at first was 
a dream of the priests, became a fixed reality, which brings us To a time 
when all over the world, minds capacious or narrow, wills strong and 
lofty, or weak and groveling, souls aspiring or humble, bend the knee, 
bow the head, lift up the hands in the old accustomed way, and have not 
a thought that it is anything but the will of God and his command that 
they should do it. The one book becomes above every other holy and 
supreme and thus the Bible retires every other form of literature to the 
shade of secular inferiority, and the great building, the church of the 
Christian, the temple of the Pagan, towers supreme over all other 
edifices, and in them the guesses at truth, the surmises, the conjec- 
tures which men, more or less wise, more or less bigoted and prejudiced 
have ventured to put forth as divine truth, are accepted, are repeated 
and recited in the form of liturgies, confessions and creeds, by kneeling 
millions of men and women over the whole world. Institutions, such 
as these, originating in the way these have and becoming as fixed and 
impregnable as these are, never reason, never justify themselves and 
never make any apology for possible errors, never plead and never 
argue or explain, but always impudently boast that they only have the 
truth passed along to them from antiquity, and there they are, they 
stand, they exist and stand firm, and this is their only guarantee of 
authority to be, they prevail by the attribute of stability alone, their 
greatest force is in their persistency. How wonderful to us moderns 
is the power and influence of antiquity. Simply to have lasted a few 
only, of the vast generations of time, is to acquire a mysterious and an 
awful power over the average human mind, when it is reinforced by the 
persuasive eloquence of the divinely so-considered authorized priests, 
which it cannot throw off, for the simple reason that they do not desire 
to throw it off as things now are. 

This Bible which has been read by many millions of men for a 
thousand years or about that long, is to these millions the inspired book, 
the articulate word of God, and such usages as the burial of the dead, 
confirmation preparatory to the eucharist or Lord's supper, and mar- 
riage of the sexes which has been solemnized by millions of men and 
women, becomes in time sacramental to such an extent that simply to 
go through the form becomes both sacramental and satisfying to all, 
and besides, if there is any one thing about which every rational or 
being possessed of the gift of reason should be entirely satisfied, that 



How the Atheist Explains Creation. 139 

thing undoubtedly is his eternal destiny, when this short life is over, or 
in other words, does his mature intellect uninstructed, enable him to 
arrive at a definite conclusion as to the existence of many gods, or 
simnly and only one god or finally of no god at all. Every atheist is 
compelled to find a solution of a cause adequate to produce matter, 
because matter exists and is a manifest fact and the impostors who 
invented the absurd manner to account for the origin of simply this 
small dust of matter called earth, was obliged to invent a producing 
cause without going back of that cause to find. a first cause, which 
leaves the whole question as far from a satisfactory solution as it was 
at first, for it is just as difficult if not more so to find a first cause than 
any succeeding one, and therefore the theist starts with an assumption 
and proceeds as though everybody would unhesitatingly concede his 
premises, and he proceeds to elaborate a theory when his premises are 
wholly unsupported, and not even as much as attempted to be proved, 
and when the atheist asks him where he found authority to start such an 
untenable theory he immediately falls back on his Bible assertion of the 
manner that creation was brought out of a chaotic state and reduced to 
its condition as we behold it and says, that the Bible is inspired, which 
is another unproved assumption, and must ever remain one, and conse^ 
quently the atheist is left without any other 1 resource but to find some 
satisfactory way of his own to get out of the difficulty, and while he does 
not put it forth as anything inspired, or perhaps not more certain than 
probability, it is confessedly more reasonable than the uninspired 
assumption of the Bible, because that experiment, as far as man and 
animals was concerned, was a failure, and a repetition of the experi- 
ment is no better than the first one was, and the race, as a whole are 
doomed to a future life of eternal damnation all but about five per cent, 
which Christianity asserts will be saved through his (Christ's) vicarious 
atonement. It will be cheerfully conceded by the atheist that such 
existence in its majestic grandeur and infinitude as is revealed by 
astronomy, and other kindred sciences, is indeed awe inspiring, and 
incomprehensible, also bewildering, mysterious and absolutely beyond 
human solution, yet it must also be conceded that its existence (unlike 
that of a God) is a self-evident fact, a reality beyond cavil or dispute, 
and which in turn proves that such existence in its elemental form or 
in the form of its constituents is eternal, and therefore it is more reason- 
able to affirm or to assume the eternity of the known than the unknown, 
because cosmic (or that which is real) existence requires no proof for 
it is seen, and can be studied, analyzed, and to a greater or less extent 
understood, and is self-evident here, there and everywhere, and this 
universal conception of the existing material, universe, should alone be 



140 The Skeptic's Defense. 

absolute and sufficient proof to all the world that such existence is eter- 
nal that it never was caused, never began, and hence never needed a 
god to create or a first cause, to cause what is visible, or any designer 
to design it, therefore there is only one definite and correct answer to 
the favorite taunt or inquiry of the theist, " Whence came it? " and that 
answer is, It never came. . It is eternal because it exists, that one simple 
fact proves its eternal existence, and therefore for the theist to say and 
insist that there was a time when the universe did not exist implies the 
absurdity that nothing after being and remaining nothing during all 
the ages of be.ginningless time prior to the beginning assumed by the 
Bible writer, suddenly produced from itself or from nothing an infinite 
universe, and he by this reasoning forgets to mention that nothing is 
only nothing and must always remain nothing, for it possessess no 
powers or potency to produce, even during an eternity the most imper- 
ceptible atom much less a universe. If then at any time in the past 
nothing had existed, nothing would now exist. The foregoing we 
know for certain, there is no room for assumption or doubt, it is real 
beyond cavil or criticism. On the contrary we know absolutely noth- 
ing about a God and no two original thinkers, no two idealists or the- 
ologians, however learned or celebrated, have the same ideas concern- 
ing such a being or power, and all definitions of such a 
thing or creature as are entertained by the various nations, 
sects or tribes, vary as much as does humanity itself, and the most 
gifted theologian and the most illiterate peasant, in addressing through 
prayer this mysterious being, which his fancy has created, has the same 
indefinite understanding who and what he is addressing, and where it 
resides and they are both alike blindly groping, without ever getting, or 
even expecting any response, or even recognition, therefore why do not 
these silly dupes of superstition conclude with us atheists, that all 
attempts to solve the problem of the existence of the universe by invent- 
ing a God as a first cause or creator, must and will ever remain abortive 
efforts of childish reasoning, and a lamentable failure for all it does is to 
divest the visible all of, and invests the invisible all, with the potency 
to cause all phenomena we observe in nature. 

Do you silly reasoners not see that a first cause, or as you say God, 
implies an infinite something of which you know absolutely nothing, 
possessing powers and attributes superior to those existing in nature 
and amply sufficient to cause to spring into existence from pre-existing 
nothing, miraculously an infinite universe. It also implies that such 
first cause, or as the theist says God, prior to the (imaginary) beginning, 
was not a cause, but eternally inactive, latent, nonproductive, in the 
most absolute condition of negation, and that such cause during all the 



Creation As the Bible Has It Disputed. 141 

infinite cycles of ages which preceded such beginning, did not produce 
a solitary effect, and it further implies that after being eternally inactive, 
and the cause of absolutely nothing during all the ages of beginningless 
time, he or it did suddenly and miraculously so stupendously change his 
or its characteristics, as that he or it created the universe, and last, but not 
least it presents to thinking men and women, at least, to those who are 
free to think without bias or prejudice, the following grotesque propo- 
sition. The universe exists, consequently a God or " first cause " must 
have preceded it, and this " first cause," is eternal, never was created 
and never needed a creator. 

Six thousand years ago, or thereabouts, as the Bible chronology has 
it computed, this "first cause," or God, created, or if you prefer, the word 
caused the universe to come forth into being or visibility, out of noth- 
ing. No other cause existed with or beside it, or him, prior to this 
time. That performance recorded in Genesis was the absolute and only 
beginning of the heavens and the earth. Until then, it, or he alone, 
monopolized all space and all time. During all the ages prior to this 
recent beginning of time, it, or he, did not cause either a world or a 
sun, moon, star, man, or animal, vegetable, mineral or even a single 
atom. Eternal darkness reigned here, there and everywhere. Such is 
a correct statement of the theists' argument, which the atheist must 
either refute or admit, both Jewish and Christian sentiments, and con- 
ception of the true God is identical, and this conception has had undis- 
puted and universal possession of the Jewish, the Christian, and the 
Mahometan nations of the whole world for the entire six thousand 
years since it first was invented, for it is not a revelation, in any sense, 
but a mere invention, and no thinking mind of all the past has dared, or 
even wished to try to dispute this unproved assumption till he who now 
writes these lines has ventured to dispute and refute this unfounded 
imposition, for so far as he is aware, no atheist has adopted this mode 
of reasoning, and he has the vanity, if you please to call it, by that name, 
that his position is unassailable, and his arguments unanswerable, and 
still he will not assert they are strictly true, but they are enough to be 
satisfactory to himself. 

But at this stage of the inquiry, the question naturally arises in 
every thinking mind or a mind intent on knowing, if possible, the rea- 
son why things are as they seem to be, or are said to be by those who 
assume to instruct mankind in reference to mysterious subjects. What 
influence was exerted by this God of the theists, after an eternity of idle 
waiting, in which absolutely nothing was done, to suddenly start into 
activity for six literal days,and create out of previous nothing a universe, 
for we are not at liberty to limit this inspired account recorded in the 



142 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Bible, merely to the solar system, to which the earth belongs, it must 
include all the visible and invisible universe, for here is certainly, if true, 
a magnificent, imposing effect, for this first cause to produce. The 
theists' God which is the Bible God, the Jewish, Christians', and the 
Mahometans' God, or as they say, " first cause," certainly, accordingly 
to their own reasoning, did not cause it, for what he or it could not do, 
or cause to be done, during the vast eternity preceding this imaginary 
creation, he or it would or could never do, for this first cause is 
described by his inventors as both omniscent and unchangeable, omni- 
present and eternal, consequently what this God could not or would not 
do during the eternity preceding the " beginning " he 1 of course would 
never do. 

What then, in the name of reason, caused the universe, or what 
caused the first cause or God to create it after an eternity of non-exist- 
ence, for it must be admitted by these reasoners, there is no effect with- 
out a cause, but during an eternity, all existing causes had refused or 
declined or been unable to act or to produce the universe. What then, 
I demand to know, and I require you to explain intelligently, so I can 
comprehend it, was the cause which compelled the first cause, or God, 
suddenly to have an impulse to create it about six thousand years ago, 
but not six thousand quadrillion years ago, or a period so remote in 
the past that man's intellect is not able to compute the time. If there 
existed in these previous ages no causes or conditions outside or inde- 
pendent of the theists' God, then of course this God having in his 
superlative wisdom deemed it best not to create during all this previous 
eternity, and being unchangeable, the creative act would never have 
been consummated, but if there were other causes in existence, which 
did operate so as to prompt or cause this God to do that which, with- 
out such agencies he would not have done, then by this concession, the 
theists' God is instantly and entirely stripped or deprived of his divine 
character and attributes, ceases consequently to be the true creator and 
designer or architect, because in that case other causes are revealed as 
existing, exterior, anterior, or superior to him, and which really pre- 
ceded the theists first cause. 

And thus we perceive that all arguments predicating or inventing a 
first cause, a God, a creation, or " beginning," do not only not explain, 
but they infinitely mystify existing problems, and consequently the only 
rational conception of nature is the eternal existence of all matter, which 
in and of or by itself is force, or if you please to so name it, is life, and 
which, possessing within itself, all the necessary attributes, not only of 
self-existence, but self-propagation, or if you prefer the term self-for- 
mation, needs no creator, designer or first cause, or of a God to aid 



Who is the Atheist or the Theist. 143 

it in its evolution to the highest conceivable forms. The undeniable 
fact that natural law exists now and has existed as far back in the past, 
as human history or even mythology can penetrate, absolutely proves 
that in its elementary forms, it has always existed, and will always 
exist, and this is not all,assuming harmony and order now, and evolving 
world's, sun's, systems, and every variety of vegetable and animal life, 
distinctly and conclusively proves that it has ever evolved such forms, 
and that consequently in the dim vista of a past eternity, there never 
was a first world, first sun, first tree or first man,but all such phenomena, 
with which men in all ages have been familiar, are but repetitions of the 
same or like phenomenon, having been evolved forever,and will continue 
to be evolved to all eternity, in precisely the same way. Because it is plain 
that any particular first world, sun, or system would again imply an 
eternity of time preceding its formation, when it created nothing which, 
if true, would absolutely have prevented such world at any time, for it 
must be eternal stand still, or eternal activity, both cannot be true. 

Being active to-day, proves the universe has been active in the 
past, and will be active forever in the future. I therefore ask which 
then is the more reasonable, that a first cause, of which we know abso- 
lutely nothing, can exist uncaused, and then from nothing create an 
infinite universe, or that a universe which we all behold in sublime 
splendor, self-evident, and real, continually struggling to evolve into 
sun, world, flower or man, is both self-existent, and eternal, so that the 
axiomatic predication of science, that time is eternal alone, proves 
beyond cavil or equivocation, that there is no God, no " beginning," no 
designer, and no " first cause," and the absence of these supernatural 
and prenatural agencies, of course, establishes the fact that the universe 
is eternal in its abstract existence and possesses in its aggregated form 
all the potencies to cause, create and evolve all the phenomena in exist- 
ence, now, in the past, or which may exist in the future. 

The only God I care to know anything about, is embraced in this 
definition, " God is the order of the moral universe, as also of the physi- 
cal universe. The eternal law of right, which is the foundation of every 
human being, instinctively, naturally and universally." Is this Athe- 
ism? No, it is not, for there is no such a thing as atheism, only a dif- 
ferent conception of what God is far more consistent and true than any 
Bible God. 

One of the most deplorable results of false instruction in the depart- 
ment which the priesthood occupies, is found in the impression they 
seek to make, and in most cases they do make, as to the value a 
Christian's hope has to soften the pillow on which the dying head of a 
believer, in the salvation which Christ has promised those who are 



144 The Skeptic's Defense. 

faithful unto death, in which they take especial pains to represent the 
hard nature of the pillow,on which the head of the dying infidel is obliged 
to rest, so that infidel death beds have always been a fertile theme of 
pulpit eloquence. The priests of Christianity almost always when they 
officiate at the funeral of one of even the weakest and most obscure of 
one of their dupes, after eulogizing the triumphant faith that sustained 
his dying moments, will, by way of contrast, draw an imaginary, and 
in most cases a false picture of some noted infidel's last moments, when 
he lamented with the most fearful emphasis, the despair with which he 
viewed his future prospects, which picture is something like this. Free 
thought is, or seems to be so to the free thinker, very well in the days of 
our health and strength, when the soul is buoyed up by the pride of car- 
nal intellect, but ah! how poor a thing it is when health and strength 
fail us, when we are deserted by our own self-sufficiency, we turn for 
support and comfort to a stronger power. In that extremity the proud 
free thinker turns appealingly to Jesus Christ, renounces his wicked 
skepticism, implores pardon of the Savior he has till now despised, and 
shudders at the awful scenes that await him in the next world should 
the hour of forgiveness be forever past. 

While it may be admitted that some ministers have witnessed a 
scene of this kind, which they have in all cases exaggerated, it is a 
notorious fact, that where there is one such case in the death bed experi- 
ence of those who the physician attends in their last moments, who 
reach that point in absolute unbelief, there are far more among dying 
Christians who die with unpardoned sin, or without the absolution of 
the priest in their dying moments. Pictorial art has been pressed into 
the service of this plea in behalf of religion, and in addition to this there 
has been a swarm of pious inventions which are called tracts, and these 
have been circulated among the dupes of the priesthood in vast num- 
bers, in which the expiring skeptics have been portrayed in agonies of 
terror, gnashing their teeth, wringing their hands, rolling their eyes 
and exhibiting every sign of despair. The real answer to these argu- 
ments, if they are worthy to be called such, is found in the well-known 
fact, that throughout the world the religious beliefs of mankind have 
alwavs been determined by the geographical accident of their birth. 

In England, for instance, men grow up Protestants, in Italy and 
France, they grow up Catholics ; in Russia, Greeks ; in Turkey, Arabia, 
and Egypt, Mahometans; in India, Brahmins; in China, Buddhists or 
Confucians, and for the most part, what these have been taught in 
childhood and youth, they continue to believe in their manhood, and 
they nearly all die in the faith in which they were born and reared. 
Here and there, the world over, there are but a few men in comparison 



Why Infidels May Sometimes Recant. 145 

to the whole mass who think for themselves in religious matters, and 
even if they, individually discard or renounce the faith in which they 
have been trained and educated, they are never free from its influence, 
and are restrained by their environments from becoming conspicuous 
and outspoken, and consequently without much influence, and a thous- 
and ties are constantly drawing them back to the fold, or outward asso- 
ciations from which they have strayed, and only the few stronger ones 
resist these attractions; the weaker ones yield to it, and these are the 
ones that are taken for the illustration above referred to, in describing 
death bed scenes; between these extremes is the average man, whose 
tendencies depend on his environments or surrounding influences. If he is 
entirely isolated, and cut off from former associates, or even in .some 
cases if he finds but few smpathizers, he may return to the ranks of his 
former faith, outwardly, and if he does that, he is at best only a hypo- 
crite, but if he succeeds in finding many of his way of thinking, he will 
naturally have and display more courage and fortitude, for men, if free 
thinkers or mental slaves, no matter which, they are gregarious, they 
must have congenial associates, and in order to secure such, they must 
outwardly at least agree with the majority. 

When skeptics are few and their relatives are orthodox, what is, or 
could be more natural than what is called a death bed recantation, in 
which the force of early training then asserts itself, when their minds in 
sympathy with their body is enfeebled by disease, and when on the near 
approach of death they are surrounded by their relatives,and perhaps the 
priest, who continually urge them to be reconciled to the popular faith, 
is it wonderful, or does it give cause for exultation, that in these cir- 
cumstances they sometimes yield to these influences and solicitations,but 
not always. Is it wonderful when all grows dim and the foul carrion 
buzzard of the death chamber, the priest mutters his priestly nonsense 
in his hearing, that his weak brain should become dazed, and the feeble 
tongue utter a faint response? Should the dying man be old, there is 
still less reason for surprise for the recantation of old men, if it ever 
occurs, is easily accounted for, and explained, as they having been 
brought up in any particular form of religion, their earliest and tender- 
est memories are associated with it so when they lie down to die, they 
often recur to that period mechanically, just as they may, and often do 
forget whole years of mature life. Cases of recantation were never 
common, and at the present time they are exceedingly rare, indeed, 
they are so rare, they are never heard of except in anonymous tracts, 
which are always invented, it is reasonable to conclude, both for the 
edification of man, and the glory of God, for in these times skeptics are 
much more numerous and bold; they can be numbered by the thous- 



146 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ands, and they can always secure at their dying bed sides, the presence 
of friends who share their unbelief, and they can, and do, in most cases 
absolutely forbid their surviving relatives from either summoning any 
priest, or allowing one to say anything over their remains. 

Now, suppose we should indulge in a tremendous stretch of fancy 
for the sake of argument, which it is, to suppose that every free thinker 
or skeptic should pretend to turn Christian, or wish to on his death 
bed, or just before his death was expected. What would it prove? 
Nothing, but as has been before stated, but the force of our surround- 
ings and early training, for it is a common saying among the Jews, 
when they hear of one of their number turning Christian, which is 
extremely rare. Wait till he comes to die, and it is an astonishing fact 
that no Jew who turned Christian ever died in that faith, they invariably 
die in the Jewish faith, and the same is true of all the natives who are 
converted to Christianity, or pretend to be by the missionaries, who are 
never weary of boasting and misrepresenting both the numbers, and the 
social standing of their heathen converts, when the truth is, none are 
ever converted, and only listen to the missionary in hope of a plentiful 
supply of his wants, and his apparent interest in their instruction 
is for no other reason, and for a Christian to attempt to either take 
advantage of the feeble intellect of childhood, or of the weakened intel- 
lect of a dying skeptic to influence him in a religious sense, is no better, 
morally, than it would be to get a man drunk and then rob him, or get 
a woman drunk, and then rob her of her virtue, and chastity. The 
same is true of all missionary efforts, it is a moral outrage, to go unin- 
vited and unwished for among any people, and then interfere with their 
established religion. It is quite intelligible why Christians think skep- 
tics recant in presence of death, for these Christians believe in a venge- 
ful God, and an everlasting hell of torment, therefore, as they them- 
selves would tremble on the verge of eternity without a saving faith in 
Christ, they also imagine the skeptic does who rejects both the hope of 
heaven, and the fear of hell, and -then the orthodox will ask is there, 
after all, a sincere disbeliever? and the skeptic will reply, is there a 
sincere Christian? and this skeptic regards the end of life as just as 
little to be noticed as its beginning, and to desire eternal bliss, is no 
proof or even indication we shall ever have it, and it is the hight of 
absurdity to believe in what we ardently wish for. 

All forms of Christianity are founded in selfishness, for the expecta- 
tion held out of bliss throughout eternity in return for the profession of 
faith in Christ and him crucified and risen, stimulate the Christian 
to erect expensive houses in which to worship God in all Christian 
lands. Remove or annul this extravagant, unauthorized and silly 



A Reason Why Some Repetition Occurs. 147 

promise, and Christianity would forever totally disappear, and this 
promise is a priestly invention which cannot be found in the Bible, so 
much as an inference, a mere vile worthless deception of priestcraft for 
an unworthy purpose. 

There is no doubt that whoever shall have read what has been 
written in the foregoing 1 pages will have perceived that no one subject 
has been exclusively dwelt upon, except that the whole drift of these writ- 
ten reflections has had for its principal theme and object, to excite con- 
tempt and ridicule upon not only the Christian system or form of relig- 
ious belief and practice, but also all other forms or systems classing all 
as alike, false and pernicious. The same will be true with what is to 
follow, but as Christianity is that form with which the readers of these 
reflections are the most familiar, more pains will be taken to criticize 
that form than any other, and such fragmentary reflections as may 
occur to the writer at various intervals when his circumstances and sur- 
roundings are such as make it possible to write at all, hence what has 
preceded, and what is to follow, necessarily, will be somewhat discon- 
nected, and mayin instances be repeated by reason of not rewriting and 
revising the manuscript. 

Any candid person who has lived long) enough to have had much 
experience, can not have failed to notice that as soon after the intro- 
duction of the imposition of the Christian religion, and its apparently 
secure establishment by the absorption and consolidation of the civil 
authority, to, in a great measure protect it when assailed from any 
quarter, that as soon as any man or even any considerable number of 
men beganl to question, doubt, or investigate subjects connected with 
religious beliefs as the ecclesiastical authorities had prescribed as salu- 
tary and beneficial or true, the church be^an to oppose. When the 
scientist who had been endowed by nature with a desire and ability to 
in some degree try to investigate and understand that department of 
science called astronomy, or study of the contents of space, which men 
call the starry heavens, the church immediately branded his grand, 
noble forehead with the word " Infidel," and compelled him, also to 
refrain from giving any star a Christian name, not only, but they 
obliged many of the first and best astronomers to desist and retract 
what their discoveries obliged them both to assert and be able to dem- 
onstrate, such as that the earth was a sphere instead of a plain, that it 
turned upon its axis, instead of remaining stationary as the ignorant 
writer of the Hebrew scriptures imagined it to be, and so wrote it down 
to be, and claimed divine authority to so write. 

In later times the geologist has penetrated into the interior of the 
earth, and in that way has read its history in the leaves of the stone 



148 The Skeptic's Defense. 

books, which are hidden in her bosom, the records and souvenirs of all 
the ages. Notwithstanding that these scientists in all previous time 
have been by the church bigots branded as " Infidels " they have always 
fought for the rights of all men, to not only do their own thinking, but 
to give expression to such thoughts in their own way, and conceded 
this right to all others, being thus the only fearless advocates of liberty, 
and justice, and while doing all this, the church has lyingly charged us 
with only tearing down without building any structure to replace what 
we destroy, as though it was of no value to destroy the unfounded fear 
of hell which they hold forth to restrain men's conduct, without at the 
same time proving and establishing the certainty of an unfounded hope 
of heaven, as a reward of a virtuous life. In other words, when one 
destroys weeds and thistles, he is not therefore obliged to sow good 
seed. 

During the frightful period of about one thousand years, which are 
known in history, as the dark ages, when Christianity had so far 
gained the ascendancy over paganism, as to be able to be dictatorial as 
well as persecuting," Faith " reigned, with but here and there a rebel- 
ligious subject. The Christian temples were so crowded with the faithful 
devotees of the priesthood, that the floors thereof were so covered by the 
bended knees of the worshippers at these sacred shrines, that no space 
could be found for more; and the wealth and resources of nations was 
required, with which to erect and adorn these countless, useless magnifi- 
cent cathedrals, which yet excite both the admiration and wonder of the 
traveler in these vast regions, and in addition to all this, the great 
painters, sculptors, and every grade of artist, prostituted their genius to 
immortalize her nonsensical vagaries, while great poets and musicians 
enshrined them both in song and melody, and at her bidding, obedient 
men covered and deluged these lands, over which the church reigned 
supreme, with human blood. All the scales of justice were so corrupt 
that gold alone could turn them, and the inventive genius of her priests, 
monks and subjects, invented the most horrible instruments of torture 
the world has ever seen, and the most horrible dungeons to confine the 
one who dared to differ or to doubt or hesitate, and then as an offset, 
peopled the clouds with angels of their o\vn invention, and the earth 
with slaves. This determined deadly conflict has for thousands of years 
been waged between a few brave men and women on the one side, and 
the great ignorant mass on the other side, an undecided war between 
Science and Faith. The few have always appealed to reason, to honor, 
to law, as revealed by scientific discovery and demonstration to the 
known, and to happiness, and content right here, and now, in this world 
without, by faith waiting for another. The many have and yet do 



Christian Nations Are Fond of War. 149 

appeal to fear, to prejudice, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and 
to misery hereafter. The few have said, think. The many have said, 
believe, and let the priest do your thinking. Education and knowl- 
edge has always been both dreaded and discouraged when sought for 
by the masses, and centred and monopolized by the few, and the church 
in all its branches and ramifications, so faithfully guards the dangerous 
tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to 
prevent mankind from eating the fruit thereof, so that the priests have 
never ceased repeating the old threat given to the first human pair: 
" Ye shall not eat of it, or even touch it lest ye die." But a few Infidels 
in this nineteenth century, said to the ignorant rabble, or those who 
had been partly transformed by a taste of the tree of knowledge: Halt 
and drink more from this fountain, and you can then see that the Christ- 
ian priest told you a lie when he instructed you that this earth was the 
center and sum of everything, and that the stars were made out of what 
little nothing God had left when he got this earth done. The priest 
said, his earth must rest on something, and when the scientist put his 
hand under it and said it rested on nothing, but was self-supported in 
"infinite space. The church then began to say, I did not say it was flat 
or not so awful flat. It was kind of rounding. 

Christian nations have been in the past, and now are, the most 
war like and insolent nations this world has ever seen. They have 
invented the most destructive weapons of warfare, such as the revolver, 
the rifle, the cannon, and bombshell, and torpedo, and they culti- 
vate above all others, the acts of warfare, and they have no respect 
for the rights of any barbarous poeple, whose country they hap- 
pen to covet, or any tribe that happen, to differ with them, or an island 
in mid-ocean their avarice or cupidity stimulates them to desire, their 
ships of war sail up to it and their mariners seize it, regardless of any 
body's rights or protests, so that the same old spirit that animated the 
old inquisition, still slumbers in the breasts of Christian men. 

From every pulpit come the same cry, born of the same fear, lest 
they eat and become as gods knowing good from evil. For this reason 
religion hates science. Faith detests reason. Theology is the sworn 
enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards 
vigilantly the hated tree of knowledge, and like God, its author and 
founder curses and consigns to the lowest depths of perdition the brave 
few who dare to think, or in other words eat of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge, and thereby become as gods knowing truth from error, or 
falsehood. The only true Bible is nature, and that appeals to man as 
demonstration. It has nothing to conceal, nothing to represent in the 
manner of figure, or parable, or miracle. It has no objection to being 



150 The Skeptic's Defense. 

read and no fear of being either misunderstood, or to be contradicted. 
It does not pretend to be holy or sacred it simply claims and proves its 
claim to be true, and challenges the scrutiny of both scientists and theo- 
logians, and invites every reader to verify it for himself, and has no pro- 
hibition or fear of being blasphemed. This book of nature appeals to 
all the surrounding environments by which mankind in every age, in 
every country and thoughout all time finds himself to be restrained 
and compelled to adapt himself to its inexorable laws and unchangeable 
conditions, and everything that exists, confirms and establishes its abso- 
lute perfection, and its undeviating character and immutable truth, and 
the earth, with its heart of fire, with its forests, its mountains, and plains, 
its rocks and seas, confirms its every word, and the stars which forever 
shine in the fathomless abyss of space, are the eternal witnesses of its 
infinite reality. 

We, in these days hear a great deal being said about the inspiration 
of our holy Bible, a vigorous controversy is being had by its advocates 
on the one hand insisting and endeavoring to substantiate that its sev- 
eral authors or writers were the mere secretaries or clerks to write down 
such facts as the eternal God considered necessary or proper for man 
to have as a guide for his moral conduct to enable him to pass through 
this world in the best and most satisfactory manner, and at the same 
time prepare himself for everlasting felicity in a world to come, and 
those on the other hand, insisting that inspiration simply means an 
impression made on the mind of each hman being in proportion to his 
capacity to be impressed by any outward object, as for instance, when 
I go to the seashore in a violent gale of wind, and witness the terrible 
agitation of the water lashing the rocky shore with majestic fury, It 
makes on my mind a peculiar impression in some respects different 
from the impression it makes upon my associates, but it leaves some 
impression upon all who witness it because one individual has a different 
development of brain from another, consequently has a different capac- 
ity of receiving and retaining impressicns from the same object than his 
associates have, and a further reason is found in the fact that no two 
human beings have had the same experience in every respect, for some 
are old, others are young, some are males, and others are females, some 
are married, others are unmarried, some have had great oppor- 
tunities of culture, and have improved them to the utmost, thereby cul- 
tivating and enlarging their mental faculties, rendering them able to 
understand and appreciate what is entirely above and beyond the capac- 
ity of another, who has never had or never improved his opportunities 
of acquiring useful knowledge, hence the more I have read and reflected, 
the greater brain capacity I have, consequently the more any grand 



Some Immoralities Referred To. 151 

work of nature I see the more profound is my impression. This is my 
understanding of inspiration. If you understand it in another way I 
have no right to quarrel with you, nor have you a right to look upon me 
as a monster, because I differ from you. 

When you ask me to believe that God inspired David to write the 
109th Psalm, I won't believe that any God was malicious enough or 
wicked enough to inspire any such language, and so when I read in the 
Bible, and find by comparison and study that God so loved his children 
that he destroyed the first crop of them, and damned nearly the whole 
of the second crop, I don't believe any such nonsense, and if I don't 
believe any part and every part, I must say so honestly and plainly, and 
if you do believe it all I only ought to pity you. The most strenu- 
ous believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciations of what they 
are pleased to call by the name of immoral literature of the world, yet 
few are the books of the size of the Bible, that contain pro rata more 
filth than the Bible. Just read the book of Ruth, which is as filthy in 
its immoral suggestions as; it could be made, and what more obscene 
writing can be found than the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, and the 
first chapter of the gospel of Luke, is no better, and if this can be 
inspiration, the less there is of it the more moral will the world be, and 
few indeed are the books that contain more filth than this so-called 
inspired word of God, in proportion to its size, and bold, indeed, would 
be the priest, and destitute of modesty, who would dare to read in front 
of a promiscuous audience many of its indecent passages, and it would 
be an unpardonable insult to preach from many of its texts, or put them 
in any Sunday-school lesson, and still these same doctors of divinity, 
who studiously shun any allusion to these vile passages, are the most 
loud in their denunciation of any person who dare question the divine 
inspiration of the writer of this filth. This is not saying that on the 
whole it is not a good book, for it has many gems of truth, scattered 
among much that is vile and worthless, but it is neither new or peculiar 
to the Bible for the Egyptian nation, combined with the Phoenicians, 
were the progenitors and instructors of the Hebrews, and it is from that 
source, and not from any god they derived such moral precepts, as these 
were the means of transmitting to the Christian world through this 
written records, and any modest writer would no more think of soiling 
their pages with hundreds of quotations from this inspired word of God, 
than he would of inventing the most vile filth his imagination could 
conceive of, and the time will soon come, and in fact, has already come, 
when a large portion of mankind will wonder that such a book was 
ever called inspired, or indeed, any revelation at all. 

But as long as the Bible continues through the instructions of the 



152 The Skeptic's Defense. 

priests, and at their command through parental and Sunday-school 
instruction, to be considered the inspired word of God, it will be impos- 
sible to make all mankind, or at least all Christians too good and pure 
to follow the pernicious example of many of its heroes, and the vile 
precepts of many of its instructions, and the literature of any Christian 
land will never be sweet and clean until the Bible ceases to be the pro- 
duction of a wise and holy God, and it continues to be a lamentable 
fact that the best minds of the orthodox world, are at this day endeavor- 
ing, with apparent earnestness and sincerity to prove the existence of a 
personal God and a personal devil, for one of these beings is just as 
essential as the other to the theologian, but the fact remains that within 
the last hundred years science, in spite of the vigorous and persistent 
opposition of the church, which has sneered and fought it at every step, 
has advanced far enough to prove the old testament false in its cos- 
mogony, in its astronomy, in its chronology, in its history, and almost 
in everything, particularly in its prophecies, and hence, now, you are 
not expected to swallow the Bible whole, whale, Jonah, and the fiery 
furnace, but only required to pay your pew rent promptly, and liberally, 
and believe in a personal God and devil. 

Anyone can see, who is not blinded by prejudice or bigotry, that for a 
man to be inspired, and a book to be inspired, are two very different 
things, for whoever wrote the immortal plays, attributed to Shakes- 
peare, was in that direction inspired, and whoever writes a book of fic- 
tion fit to live as long as time shall continue, is in that sense inspired, 
or able to transmit real dramatic passion to posterity, but in no cast 
can the reader understand or appreciate the talent required to conceive 
the dramatic situation described, hence his inspiration is nothing better 
than second-hand, or no inspiration at all, and in this way the Bible, 
like every other book is incapable of the same construction by reason of 
different developments of the intellectual faculties of all its readers, so 
that the man who reads is inspired, or in other words, drinks in the 
thoughts of the writer as far as he is able to comprehend or understand 
the writer, and therefore in view of all the doubts and difficulties 
involved in this question of inspiration, is it not more reasonable, and 
in every way better to say and admit without hesitation or reservation, 
that the Bible is simply and only the work of feeble man. That it is 
full of mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, with allegory 
and fable, and only reflects such usages and conditions as were peculiar 
to the times and country in which, whoever wrote it, lived, and if it is 
full of mistakes or error, say honestly they were made by man. If there 
is any statement contrary to what we know of nature, say the man 
simply was ignorant, but honest, and thus relieve God from the charge 
of wilful deception. 



Why Bible Inspiration Is Impossible. 153 

If there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it cer- 
tainly was never ordered to be written by any being- worthy of the 
adoration or the worship of mankind, for a real divine God could most 
certainly write a book far superior to this in many things. The man 
who now in this age of light, knowledge and liberty, regards the old 
testament as in any sense a sacred or an inspired book, must be consid- 
ered by the most charitably inclined person, nothing short of an intel- 
lectual and a moral deformity, for there is so much in it that is cruel, 
ignorant and ferocious, that it is to every right-minded, candid person 
simoly amazing that any one above a brute ever thought it to have 
been the production of a merciful deity, or ever thought a man would 
be eternally damned any more surely by denying this Bible, than he 
would be if he denied the revolution of the earth on its axis, or its 
orbit around the sun, and the conclusion is both true and natural to sup- 
pose all men will be damned who deny or question the facts revealed by 
geology or botany, as they will be who deny the Christian scheme of 
salvation through a crucified redeemer. Does anybody suppose that 
when the Bible was first brought to the notice of the Christian world it 
was believed, or even claimed, an inspired author, for if science had 
been as far advanced then as it now is, the Bible never would or could 
have been written for new no miracle is possible, whereas, then they were 
both possible, and of frequent occurrence. Every sect into which the 
church is divided is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed even 
in his inspired word his will concerning man, for to each reader the 
Bible conveys a different meaning so that it has in the past been the 
prime direct cause of wars, persecutions, and countless martyrdoms, 
which all must have been seen and known by an infinite God, and there- 
fore not foreseeing and preventing all this misery he is directly respon- 
sible for all these deplorable consequences, and without excuse. 

According to the theologians, God the father of us all, wrote a letter 
to his children. We, the children, differ as to its meaning, and in con- 
sequence of these honest differences, we, these brothers strive to cut 
out each others hearts and in every land where this letter has been read 
the children to whom, and for whom it was written, have in consequence 
been so filled with hatred and malice that they have imprisoned and 
murdered each other, and also the wives and children of each other. In 
the name of this father who wrote us this letter, every possible enor- 
mous crime has been committed, and every conceivable outrage has 
been perpetrated, and thousands of as brave and worthy men as ever 
lived, and hundreds of thousands of tender, loving women, beautiful 
girls, and even prattling babes, have been, by the holy church exter- 
minated in the name and for the sake of Christ, and in addition to that 



154 The Skeptic's Defense. 

enormity, it has exterminated honesty, and rewarded and encouraged 
as well as universally practiced hypocrisy, and all these because it was 
commanded by a book whose author was God, and men have been 
taught to believe it, and are now so taught before they can read one 
word that is in it, and) that to doubt or examine it even was so enor- 
mous a crime that it would never be forgiven, either in this world or the 
next .., 

The old testament was first written in the HeFrew language, and the 
Hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing it, so that it had 
to be written wholly with consonants, without having any divisions into 
either words or verses, or chapters, and there was no system of punctu- 
ation whatever, so that one can readily see by writing a sentence in that 
way, in the English language, that it would require inspiration, so it can 
be read. The doctrine of the atonement, which the priests and theolo- 
gians extract from the inspired word of God, or in other words that 
future happiness depends upon simple belief in the merits of Christ 
crucified, is not only monstrous, but it is the infamy of infamies. The 
absurd and untruthful notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by 
an eternity of bliss, and that a dependence upon reason, observation 
and experience, merits eternal damnation, is too great an absurdity to 
be worth trying to refute, and can only be explained by that unhappy 
mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith. Whole libraries, how- 
ever extensive, are too small to contain a list of the names of the 
wretched tortures of their brothers, by every known instrument of tor* 
ture and who have filled every Christian land with violence and infamy, 
in defence of that creed or dogma so extracted from that sacred inspired 
holy book, and yet we are assured by these priests, they all died the 
death of the righteous and were buried in the consecrated ground, and 
no fear, or remorse, filled their guilty souls, in the last moment of their 
lives, because these men never doubted they accepted that monstrous 
creed, they were not infidels, they were baptized and received the euchar- 
ist, and respected the priest, and paid liberally the cost required to 
build and maintain the church, so that these pillows were under their 
dying heads, and they all died in peace and quiet. 

In the sixteenth century every science and scientist was regarded as 
an outcast and enemy of society, for the reason that the church 
influenced the world, which was then under its power, to believe any- 
thing they told the ignorant mob who were always ready to hang, 
strangle, burn or crucify, at their bidding, and this was the fruit that the 
seed of Christianity produced after a few centuries of cultivation and 
trial. The ecclesiastics of our days refer back to their dead saints, 
priests and popes, and say to us skeptics, do you know more than all 



A Picture of the Orthodox Judgment. 155 

these? and we without the slightest hesitation or boasting say, that if 
there was no other great name on our list, the one name of Humboldt, 
would vastly outweigh them all, and there is a host of such men, who 
stand in the front rank, men who do not guess at, but who know many 
of the secrets of nature, and these men are to-day among the advanced 
infidels and atheists, and have lived long enough to witness the brand 
of inferiority on every orthodox brain, and if we admit that some 
infinite being has guided and controlled the destiny of peoples or nations 
and individuals, history becomes a cruel and bloody farce. Age after 
age the strong have trampled upon the weak. The crafty and unscru- 
pulous have ensnared and enslaved the simple and confiding, and 
nowhere in a single instance, has any God in any way or degree suc- 
cored the oppressed, therefore man should cease to instruct his confid- 
ing and ignorant fellow man to expect any aid from on high, and by 
this time universal man should be taught both by precept and example 
that their imaginary God has no ear with which to hear, and no dispo- 
sition or hand to help, so that the conclusion is reached that religion of 
whatever kind so far from being the end or object of this life is nothing 
but a hydra-headed monster, or monster with many heads, it reaches its 
terrible coils from the heavens and thrusts its thousand fangs into the 
bleeding and quivering hearts' of all men who come under its baneful 
influence, and is the most deadly foe of human happiness and comfort 
I wonder if any man, who shall read these lines, ever tried to con- 
ceive the horrible scenes connected with the orthodox idea of the judg- 
ment day, and the damnation, eternally of those whose sentence is: 
" Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
and his angels." Condensed into a small compass it amounts to just 
this : When you come to die, (of course it is taken for granted you die 
in bed, by the slow process of a lingering sickness), as you look back 
upon the remembrance of your past life,and see how many men you have 
been the cause of their ruin, or how many women you have deceived, 
and then deserted, you are told by your priest that all such sins may be 
forgiven you, but if you recollect that you have ever disparaged either 
God or his holy book or Christ and his church, or priests, you will see 
through the shadows of death the leering looks of fiends, and the cloven 
feet and forked tails of the devils and when you arrive at the bar of God, 
and the day of judgment has arrived, you will be called up by name, in 
presence of all the human race, by the recording secretary, or clerk, of 
the court, and he will examine you in something like this manner: 
Where are you from? I am from a Christian country on earth. What 
kind of a man were you? I don't like to talk or brag about myself. 
But you have to tell the truth here; I ask you again what kind of 



156 The Skeptic's Defense. 

a man were you? Well, I was a good man. I loved my wife 
and children. My home was my heaven, and my own fireside was my 
paradise. I never knowingly gave one of my family a moment of pain. 
I don't owe any man a dollar, and I left enough of the fruits of my 
industry to pay my funeral expenses, and to keep the wolf of want from 
my family. That is the kind of a man I am. Did you belong to any 
church? I did not, they were all too mean and narrow for me to wish 
to join any of them, for they were always expecting to be happy, simply 
because somebody else was going to be damned. Well, did you believe 
that rib story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? Yes. 
No, I did not; that was more of a mystery than I could swallow. " To 
hell with him." Next. 

Where are you from? I am from the earth, too. Do you belong 
to any church? Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, too. What is your business? Cashier in a bank. Did you ever 
run off with any money that was not yours? I don't like to answer. 
But you must answer. Yes, I did. What kind of a bank was it? A 
savings bank. How much did you run off with? One hundred thous- 
and dollars. Did vou take anything else? Yes, sir. What? I took 
my neighbor's wife. Did you have a wife and children of your own? 
Yes, sir And you deserted them? O, yes, but such was my confidence 
in God, I believed he would take care of them. Have you heard of 
them since? No, sir. Do you believe that rib story? Why, yes, I 
believed all of it, sir, and I was often sorry there was not harder stories 
than that in the Bible so that I could believe them too. Then you 
believed the whole Bible, did you? Yes, with all my heart. Give him 
a harp and a seat at the right hand. 

This is a fair picture of orthodox day of judgment, and the way it is 
to be conducted, and I reject the whole, for by its theories it saves the 
heathen emperor, Constantine, who murdered both his wife and his 
oldest son, in the same year that he convened the council of Nice, to 
decide whether Jesus Christ was a man only, or the son of God, and 
they decided he was substantial with the father, therefore son of God, 
so that we are indebted to a double murder for the settlement of that 
important question, the divinity of Christ, and this was not settled till 
three hundred years after that Christ died, and had it not been for this 
council we should never have had a Savior till this day, and this same 
Constantine died like a Christian, for we hear nothing of devils leering 
at him in the shadows of death, and of his seeing his murdered wife and 
son, and no shrieks of terror issued from his white, thin lips, and the 
church has hurled no anethema against his memory, but on the con- 
trary, has eulogized his life and accepted and guarded the story of his 



A Belief in the Bible Involves Too Much. 157 

vision of the cross in the clouds on the first day of the week, thereby 
being converted to Christianity, and ordering and compelling the church 
to observe that day as the Christian Sabbath, which was the true and 
only origin of the present Sabbath of the Christian world. 

When I read in my Bible, as I have read many times, the state- 
ment, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," I can- 
not believe it or accept it, because it is contrary to my reason, for it 
appears to me that force has existed from all eternity, and force cannot 
exist apart from matter, or independent of matter and force in its 
nature is forever active, and without matter it could not act at all, and 
so I cannot avoid thinking, if I wish to, that matter must have existed 
forever to conceive of matter without force, or force without matter, or 
of a time when neither existed, or of a being who existed for an eter- 
nity, without either force or matter, and who out of nothing created both, 
to me is utterly impossible. Is it reasonable for me to suppose that by 
reason of my intellectual faculties being carried away by pride, or given 
over to hardness of heart, as the phrase is in theological language, I am 
to be damned forever. I never can believe such nonsense until I see 
more proof than has yet been brought to my notice. The believer in 
the Bible, or that it is divinely inspired, has too much to believe, for it 
declares that there once was a time when slavery was not only right 
and just, but a duty and an obligation, and also that polygamy was the 
highest form of virtue, and that the wars of extermination were waged 
with the sword of mercy, by the command, and with the active assist- 
ance of a merciful, compassionate God. When religious toleration was 
a crime, and when death by torture was a just penalty for having had 
or given expression to an honest thought. 

Is not your Jehovah (God almighty) just as bad now as he was four 
thousand years ago, or just as good then as he is now, and the change 
in] human conditions have made what was once right now wrong, so 
that slavery, polygamy, religious persecutions, and wars of conquest are 
now considered perfectly devilish, whereas once they were right, once 
they were commanded by God himself, speaking through a human 
medium, now they are prohibited, so that at present only the devil is 
in favor of slavery, and all these other evils which means that the devil 
entertains the same opinions now, that Jehovah did four thousand years 
ago, but that in the meantime Jehovah has remained exactly' the same 
as he always was, perfectly changeless and incapable of any change. 

It must be admitted by every candid writer that a vast number of 
very good, intelligent, honest people, in consequence of having been 
falsely instructed in childhood and adult life, not only believe these 
things, but hold them not onlv with the utmost tenacitv, but with 



158 The Skeptic's Defense. 

exceeding reverence, and imagine them to be of the utmost importance 
to secure the welfare -of man, and these people regard the Bible as the 
only light God has given his children, the foundation of all morality, 
of all law, order, and of all individual or national progress. These per- 
sons regard it honestly as the only means the human family have ot 
ascertaining the will of God, the origin of man, and his destiny. I dare 
to differ with all these, and both assert and prove they may be for aught 
I know honest, yet they are greatly mistaken. In all ages and coun- 
tries in which any record has been preserved so as to be now accessible, 
there have been those who have left oir record the same ideas of justice, 
charity, liberty, love and law, as are found in the Bible, and hence it 
fellows, that if the Bible really is the work of an infinite holy God, it 
should contain nothing but the grandest and sublimest truths, so as in 
all respects to excel the works of man, for within that book should be 
found the best examples of justice and the loftiest definitions of it, as 
well as the truest conceptions of human liberty, and the clearest out- 
lines of duty, the tenderest, the highest and the noblest thoughts, and 
no other, not only the human mind, has ever conceived, but higher and 
nobler than any human mind will ever be capable of receiving. 

Upori every page should be found luminous, abundant evidence of 
its divine origin, for without all this proof that it contains, and it only 
is the source whence all that is true and good is derived, unless it con- 
tains grander and more wonderful things than man has elsewhere writ- 
ten, we are not only justified in saying, but we are compelled to say 
that it was dictated and written by no being superior to man, and he no 
greater than the average man of his times, for what is it to-day, but the 
fortress and defence of all crimes, and its code of morals as illustrated 
by its greatest and best heroes is abhorrent to the natural instincts of 
every tender and good man, and while it may be admitted, many of its 
precepts are pure and beneficial, many of its laws wise and just, many 
of its statements historically true, yet the same can be said of every 
human production. It may be said and it is always said by those whose 
duty it is to defend this book from its adversaries for the reason that it 
gives them a position out of which they must draw a subsistence for 
themselves and their families, that it is unfair, and a lack of candor to 
call attention to the bad things in the Bible, while the good things are 
not so much as mentioned. Unfair or not, you continually do the 
reverse of this, besides we insist that a divine being of infinite intelli- 
gence, power and goo'dness or holiness would never put any bad. things 
or permit any other inspired author to put such trash in it as is found 
in abundance in the Bible, and it will never do to say that it is not verb- 
ally inspired in such thoughts as uphold any crimes, for if the words are 



What Bible and Other History Teaches. 159 

not inspired, what is? certainly not the thoughts, for a thought not 
expressed in words is' not transmissible, and therefore if the ideas are 
inspired they must be expressed only by inspired words, that is the rela- 
tions of the words, with respect to each other, must have been inspired. 
' Which of these two examples of Bible instruction (and such exam- 
ples can be cited in any required amount) furnish the best evidence of 
being divinely inspired, and of being the revealed will of a just and holy 
God, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," or kill all the males among the 
little ones and kill all the women, but keep all the female children alive 
for yourselves? Suppose, again, there had been nothing upholding 
slavery, war and religious persecution, polygamy and incest, in the old 
testament, does any Christian suppose that because it did not uphold 
these crimes it was not inspired on account of this omission, or that 
if there had been nothing in the old testament but laws upholding and 
encouraging these crimes, that it would be considered the work of the 
true God? Every intelligent man knows that there has been a time in 
the history of every, almost every nation, when slavery, polygamy, 
wars and persecution were regarded as divine institutions, and when 
the people were so instructed by their priests and law givers, and when 
women were looked upon and treated as beasts of burden, and when 
among some people it was considered the duty of the husband that 
must be attended to, to murder the wife for differing with him, on the, 
to him, important subject of religion. Nations that entertain and prac- 
tice these precepts at this day are regarded as savages, and it is thought 
to be impossible to now find any human society so degraded as to 
agree upon these subjects with the Jehovah of the ancient Jews, who 
were the real or supposed authors of the old testament. 

To every one but the orthodox theologians, it is perfectly easy to 
account for the mistakes, atrocities and crimes of the past by saying, 
what is a profound truth that civilization is a slow and almost impercep- 
tible growth, that the moral perceptions of all nations are obliged to be 
cultivated by ages of tyranny, of want of crime, and heroic suffering, 
that in all cases many centuries are required for man to put out the eyes 
of selfishness and hold firmly the balance of justice, and it is only when 
man is put in the sufferer's place that he becomes acquainted with his 
condition so as to realize that equal justice and the mutual obligations of 
life form the only true criterion upon which to construct a social society, 
capable of giving any satisfactory result, and to reach such a state, 
experience must be had, and inspired revelation is neither required or 
ever was, or will ever be realized. 

v The insipid dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the 
scientific and instructed thought of the present, or satisfy the craving 



160 The Skeptic's Defense. 

hunger after more substantial aliment. The cultivated brain no longer 
kills its young and aspiring pupils, but nourishes and sustains it in its 
search after scientific truth to replace these worn out doctrines. So far 
as we know, man (or woman, which is practically the same thing) is 
the author of all books. If a book had been found by the first man, 
that man might be excused in believing that some invisible being was its 
author, but as many hundred generations of men lived and died before 
any book was found, and as we know man has in our brief lifetime pro- 
duced many books, the probability is therefore so great that man also 
produced the Bible, that nothing short of priestly imposition ever could 
have made anybody but an intellectual dunce believe such a mess of 
trash and filth was anything better than man's work, and a poor speci- 
men at that. Some feeble intellect in the contemptibly little brain of 
some inferior physical specimen of a human being tried his utmost to 
invent a new and monstrously absurd doctrine about two hundred 
years ago which his successors in theological fraud have named the 
doctrine of the atonement. In countless ways the orthodox Christian 
world has for these two hundred or so years been trying to explain that 
doctrine with the result that every effort to explain it leaves it more 
muddled than it before was, and finally they all admit that it is impos- 
sible to explain it, or even understand it but still insist it is true and must 
be believed. I am convinced that it is immoral as well as untruthful to 
teach that man can sin, that he can harden his sensibilities, and pollute 
his moral nature, and then by repenting and believing something that 
he does not comprehend he can avoid the consequences of his crimes. 
Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commis- 
sion of sin? Should men be taught to bear the evils of a virtuous life 
in this world for the sake of joy in the next, that they can repent between 
the last sin and the last breath, and that by repentance every stain which 
sin has made can be washed away by and through the blood and suffer- 
ing of another, and that the saved will not even pity the victims of 
their own crimes, that the goodness of another can be transferred to 
them, and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned 
against. 

The orthodox church says that all men are vile sinners, because he 
is in debt to God, and that his obligation" to pay has been assumed by 
another victim, called a Savior. Can such a debt be transferred to 
another, and if it can, does that either pay it or relieve the debtor? In 
a financial transaction it would not by any means, can it be done in a 
moral guilt, or in violation of a natural law. You may as well expect 
the smart from a burn, received by thrusting your hand into the fire, 
to be borne by one who kept away from the fire entirely, as to expect a 



A Few Questions for Orthodox Theologians. 161 

violation of any moral law to be assumed and paid by one who never 
sinned, but who is so generous as to offer to suffer for you in turn for 
your simple belief that he is so generous. You must reap what you 
sow. No God either will or can give you wheat when you sow any 
other grain, and no devil can produce tares from wheat. It is no reason 
that this foolish doctrine is believed by some of the wisest and best, 
because if that was any reason, the same reason would oblige you to 
believe in the Koran, the Bible of the Mahometans. A Brahmin will 
make the same reason and so will the American Indian priest when he 
desires to enforce some absurdity upon the young of his tribe. It is not 
claimed that this doctrine of the atonement is necessarily false because 
it cannot be understood, but so it is not necesasrily true because it is 
not comprehended, and I still insist that the plan of redemption as it is 
usually held and preached by all ministers of orthodox churches, and 
taught by theological professors to their students is absurd, unjust and 
immoral, also untrue. 

For nearly two thousand years the fictitious character introduced 
into the fiction of the gospels, named Judas Iscariot, has been execrated 
by the Christian church, and branded as a traitor, and yet if the doctrine 
of the atonement is true upon his treachery hung the whole plan of sal- 
vation. Just for a moment suppose Judas had known cf this plan; 
known that he was selected by Christ for that very purpose, and that 
Christ was confidently depending on him, and suppose he also knew 
that only by betraying Christ could he save either himself or others, 
what ought Judas to have done? Are you willing to rely upon an 
argument that justifies the treachery of that wretch? Can it be true, 
or anywhere near true, that any man who does not believe in a God, a 
personal God, acknowledges no standard of right and wrong in this 
world, and therefore can have no theory of rewards and punishments 
in the next? Is it possible that only those who believe in the God, who, 
persecuted for the sake of difference of opinion have any standard of 
right and wrong, were the greatest men of antiquity without this stand- 
ard? In the eyes of all intelligent men of Egypt, of Greece, and Rome, 
were all deeds whether in themselves, they were good or evil, morally 
alike, or is it necessary to believe in an infinite intelligence before you 
can have any standard of right and wrong? Is it possible that a being 
cannot be just or virtuous unless he believes in some infinitely superior 
to himself? If this doctrine be true, how can your God be either wise, 
just or virtuous, or 'must he believe in some being superior to himself? 
if you refer me to conscience, I ask, in all earnestness, to have a defini- 
tion of conscience. If a man were incapable of suffering, if man could 
not feel pain or remorse, the word conscience would never have been 



162 The Skeptic's Defense. 

invented, but some men's imagination have been instructed in early 
childhood, and cultivated in adult life to the point of feeling the mental 
agonies of another, and this man who has arrived to that point is the 
man of conscience, or in other words, conscience depends wholly on the 
surroundings and training each individual has received, and the impres- 
sion that it has made on his mind. If you instead of living in a Christ- 
ian land, and in the nineteenth century, had lived in Palestine, in the 
time of David and Solomon, and the wife of your bosom, who was or 
who might be dearer to you than your own life, had said to you, I like 
the religion of Egypt or Moab better than I do the one you adhere to, 
instead of pitying her, and trying to reclaim her, it would be a duty you 
could not avoid, to kill her, however much your sense of right, justice, 
and equity might revolt at such an alternative, and no conscientious 
scruples would be allowed to annul the command of God, and you 
must throw the first stone against a bosom that you know was filled 
with love for you, and when you saw the blood streaming from the 
wound you had made, you could then look up and receive the congrat- 
ulations of the God whose commandments you had obeyed, and reflect 
on the wisdom and justice of this God. 

The impostors, who were the inventors of any form of religion, 
have never been able to convince their ignorant and credulous dupes of 
the absolute truth of any of their tenets! or theories, which they assert 
came to them, by or through the means of direct revelation, to these 
self-appointed individuals, as mediums, and consequently they have 
required of the rank and file who look to them for direction, that 
degree of confidence in this extraordinarily endowed and favored 
medium of communication, with the supernatural being, which would 
prohibit them from doubting any of these false and unfounded assump- 
tions. This process reached its highest realization when the form of 
religion, called Christianity, prevailed so far over paganism or idolatry, 
in the region where this form originated, as to give them the alterna- 
tive of adopting this new religion in place of their own or be exter- 
minated. An unquestioned faith was required in any absurdity these 
tyrants of the mind, who invented these impositions, chose to state to 
them. This same process of an unquestioned reliance, on any and every 
ridiculous and positively wicked dogma that the human intellect, when 
v holly engrossed with this one idea, how to frame a consistent, religious 
system, has been able from time to time to invent, has always been 
required, and is now as sternly required of these misguided and falsely 
instructed dupes and adherents of the tyrannical hierarchs, who rule and 
guide, and pretend to instruct the various branches of the Christian 
church, as it ever has been, and woe to the man who is one of their 



A New Definition of Christian Faith. 163 

priests, or who is in any kind of business, who relies on the support of 
his Christian brethren, who dares to doubt or question any orthodox 
dogma or article of any creed to which he was compelled to pive his 
assent, and the promise of his continued support. His social standing, 
as well as his business is ruined, and if his doubts ripen into absolute 
unbelief, he is as vigorously shunned by all religious fanatics and bigots 
as if he had the most loathsome contagious disease. Faith, the most 
unquestioning and unwavering absolute and firm alone will secure all 
these to most people, desirable and valuable favors, and is much easier 
and more pleasant than doubt, for it is only produced by examination,and 
the application of the reasoning faculty to a greater or less extent, and 
faith can be had without effort, and is therefore worthless, not only, 
but an actual damage. Any future event is uncertain in proportion to 
the distance beyond the present, and when any statement is made that 
goes beyond the close of time, and attempts to* disclose what eternity is 
to reveal, must be capable of demonstration, before it is either reliable 
or valuable, or even desirable, and the fact that no attempt is made to 
more than assume without as much as analogy, as adequate proof, it 
must be instantly rejected. 

No form of religious belief could survive if faith is eliminated. The 
importance of the exercise of what in the nature of all forms of religion 
is of the first and greatest moment, is to implicitly believe all the absurd 
statements of the founders and propagators of the several kinds of relig- 
ions with which the human race has always been cursed, on the mere 
assertion of some unknown, and often, very obscure person, and such 
belief has received the name of Faith, in the Christian religion, instead 
of credulity, which is the proper designation to apply to all statements 
that are not capable of proof or demonstration, and the improper use 
of the term faith has led to the most deplorable results to the human 
intellect, causing the whole human race to so neglect the use of the 
gift of reason, that in nearly all the race the reason has become extinct, 
or so feeble as not to be able to act, so as to prevent the entire race from 
becoming the dupes of the designing hypocrites and impostors, that 
have gained an ascendancy over them by pretending to be able to 
reveal through inspiration, mysteries beyond the comprehension of 
average mortals. Such is and always has been the claim of the priests 
of all religions, as far as our information extends, but as the Christian 
form of deception, falsely called religion, is more accurately known 
to those who, by association and education, have been familiar to a 
greater or less extent with the new testament scriptures, and the various 
commentators who have, from time to time attempted to explain the 
obscure teachings intended to be put forth by the various writers, that 



164 The Skeptic's Defense. 

they assume wrote these fragmentary, meaningless drivel, designated as 
gospels, acts, epistles, and revelations, so as to perceive that the strong- 
est, and most urgent stress is laid on the importance of faith, it is well 
to inquire what it is, and why so much depends on its unquestioned 
exercise, for without it in active exercise the Christian system, and to 
some extent, every other system could not live a moment, for it all 
depends on its unquestioned exercise, and an undisputed assent of the 
reason to a proposition that is impossible to establish, wholly improb- 
able in its nature, totally impracticable and unnecessary. It has no 
excuse worth a moment's consideration for ever forcing itself on the 
attention of mankind, but inasmuch as it is among us, and seeks to 
absorb and to so dwarf and belittle all other pursuits, it must be met and 
tolerated like many other evils till the common sense of those who 
are its dupes can be aroused to such an extent that they will be able to 
perceive their abject condition, and throw off the army of impostors to 
whom they have listened in past ages. 

The word faith has no meaning whatever, except such as is put on it 
to adapt it to the imposition intended to be put upon the race by the 
introduction of any new form of religious belief, and we need not inquire 
about any except the Christian religion. Mere belief is not necessarily 
faith, for belief is the product of some evidence, but. faith in order to be 
strong must never expect proof, indeed proof would destroy faith, hence 
the reason must be inactive or dormant before faith can act, and the 
proposition to be acted upon must, in fact, be so much beyond the 
bounds of reason as to be impossible to be so accepted by it that any 
attempt to harmonize the conflicting statement put forth, on which 
faith is required to act as to paralyze reason and common sense. Faith 
is a comparatively recent invention or discovery. Nothing is ever 
heard of it before its incidental mention in the gospels where the healing 
of certain maladies was attributed to the one who received the healing 
a°. the result of his faith, when the truth was, he had no faith, and was 
never healed. With the same propriety the multitude of many thous- 
ands could say, they were fed by the faith, or on faith which is vastly 
more probable than that they had any food, and the same when the 
dead were revived, the sick healed. It was all faith or none of it was. 
Very little stress was put on the exercise of faith, till this spurious system 
began to be propagated. In the spurious book of the acts or doings of 
the apostles, much use was made of this new and improved implement 
of deception, to operate on the weak credulity of such as could be 
induced to listen to the harangues of these self-appointed fanatics, who 
first began to teach the rudiments of what has since developed into the 
various forms of religious belief, erroneously named Christianity. 



Some Criticism of Apostolic Conduct. 165 

The healing of a lame man' by Peter, who commanded him to rise 
up and walk, which he immediately did by mere faith in one of whom, 
till that moment he had never heard. Why not call such manifestations 
miraculous, and the recipient of the cure be relieved of all share in the 
deception, and say nothing- about his having any faith, for he had none. 
The people did so name it but Peter would not permit that construction 
to be put upon it, for it is to be of the utmost importance to 
require an unquestioned faith in the ability of these first impostors to so 
exercise the gifts with which they were, or were supposed to be 
endowed to make them celebrated, feared, honored and obeyed, in 
consequence of having without any cause suddenly murdered two of 
their dupes for merely an unintentional mistake about a small sum of 
money, which at the utmost limit of punishment, if any was deserved, 
would have been no more than a reproof for they had a right to reserve 
sufficient to enable those who were dependant on them, for support, 
such as children and dependent relatives, and Peter and the other con- 
summate rascals ought to have thanked them for what they did give 
instead of killing them for their generosity, showing them to be vindica- 
tive and cruel, and unfit to be entrusted with any power beyond the con- ' 
trol of the civil law, as the Roman government has both the right and 
die ability to have any such an outrageous exercise of delegated power, 
no matter where it was derived from being exercised, and punish this 
foul murder as it deserved, and would have been, if any such thing 
occurred in their dominions, and if that was not done, any mob would 
not have been amenable to punishment who had hung these wretches 
and all their rascally associates. This is related with as much confi- 
dence that it was a just punishment for lying, when the lie, if any was 
told was justifiable, and in this case nothing is shown in the account 
that they said, except by inference that the whole money was paid 
over and Peter stated that they,' or his party, had no right to receive 
any of this money, but when any lot of lazy, ignorant fanatics prey upon 
any community, and force themselves on the public, they claim the 
right to be supported by such public, without either being employed or 
rendering any equivalent. 

Now, just think of this disgraceful transaction. Here is a poor, 
honest, industrious, frugal, ignorant, unsuspecting dupe of these 
divinely inspired men, who were able to impose on the whole of any 
audience, they could persuade to assemble, to give up their whole prop- 
erty into their hands without as much as a receipt being given, or any 
plan by which they could recover either any particular sum, or be 
entitled to any support and under a false impression that it was danger- 
ous to refuse to comply with such an unreasonable requirement, but 



166 The Skeptic's Defense. 

still doubting the propriety of depriving dependant relatives of what 
was their due, and as it was their right as well as duty to divide the 
sum, received by them, for their property sold below its actual value, 
and only give these rascals what they regarded as the surplus, the 
indignation of this Peter, who seems to assume to be the chief leader of 
this unholy gang, because they did not give the whole sum to him, that 
he gives him some fatal application of almighty power, with which he 
had been furnished by the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, so that 
in the space of one second or less he had been called before the bar of 
God wholly unprepared for there is no intimation that he even professed 
to be a Christian, but was merely seeking light and instruction, and 
consequently by the teaching of these same impostors it was impossible 
for him to be saved, and this outrage did not satisfy the revengeful, 
holy Peter, he must needs have another victim, so he waits about three 
hours when the wife, no doubt mistrusting that her husband was in 
seme difficulty, sets out to ascertain what has prevented him from com- 
ing home, and without so much as being aware that she was a widow, 
was transformed into a corpse in the same manner, and bv the same 
blood-thirsty villain that her husband had just been, and none of this 
money was ever refunded, and the whole Christian church in all time 
has refused to give the faintest word of censure on this scandalous trans- 
action, but would repeat it if opportunity was given, and point to this 
example for justification, and this robbery has always been done by 
just such a set of ignorant impostors, and is now being done to furnish 
the means to propagate a false religion, and extort so much from the 
poor, in many instances as to leave a helpless family entirely destitute 
of the means of support, except as in some instances they had prudently 
laid by a small sum of the proceeds of either their accumulations or 
from the sale of their property, in some secure place, where those of 
their relatives, who were dependant on them for support could avail 
themselves of this resource, in time of need, and the rest is freely given 
to uphold a sinking and worthless institution called religion. This 
transaction, recorded in the fifth chapter of Acts, is only a sample of 
what was going on, and no doubt was surpressed, if it was ever 
recorded, but this alone is sufficient to forever stamp this whole system 
of fraud and deception, falsely designated Christianity, with infamy of 
so horrible a nature as to turn the whole world in disgust, unutterable 
away from such a monstrosity, if there was no other, but the new testa- 
ment is full of just as bad specimens, for example, the high-handed and 
needless robbery of an innocent man, of a drove of hogs, containing 
two thousand, and worth at least twenty thousand dollars, by the inex- 
cusable and unnecessary act of Christ himself, in a parley with the devil, 



Comments Concerning Faith. 167 

when he refused to leave his' abode in a wild lunatic, unless he would 
allow him to go into the hogs, which he was permitted to do, and 
caused their entire destruction, and no restitution was ever so much as 
promised to the owner. It ought to require faith, and it does require 
more than that, even credulity to receive and adopt such a monstrously 
absurd and wicked system, as is unfolded in the whole Bible, in the old 
as well as the new testament. 

See what the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews says 
about faith, let us analyze some of its statements. The definition of the 
word in the first verse is false to begin with, for it asserts, in the old ver- 
sion, that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen, when the proper definition is, it is a shadow of a reality, 
which reality is merely imaginary. The latter definition describes faith 
as applied to any religious subject, for it is neither a substance nor an 
evidence, a mere guess only. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, 
is like the other writers of scripture, entirely unknown, but whoever it 
was, he had a way to state a proposition he wished to get established, 
so as to make it so obscure that many explanations can be given any 
of which can be made by sophistry to appear reasonable, according to 
the bias or the ingenuity of the commentator or expounder who writes 
his opinion, and the reason therefore. The second verse must be passed 
without comment for it has no meaning. In the old version it reads, 
" For by it the elders obtained a good report. 1 ' The new version is dif- 
ferent in phraseology, and also in signification. " For therein the elders 
had witness borne to them." There is absolutely no meaning in either 
or both of these statements, but any theologian would write a sermon 
that would require an hour to deliver, and say nothing when it was fin- 
ished. The third verse, " Through faith we understand that the worlds 
were framed by the word of God, so that the things that are seen were 
nottnade of the things which do appear." Of course not, you must have 
enough faith to accept the theory* that something, or even everything, 
was made out of nothing. It is sufficient to say in relation to that 
verse, that it is only assumption without even the attempt to prove a 
mere guess, and is not entitled to belief, even, but if faith can make real 
such an impossible assumption, no harm is done, for no importance to 
the happiness or comfort of any mortal depends on a knowledge of the 
way creation has produced apparent results, and no amount of research 
can discover any origin, or any end of creation, and faith can have no 
reference to any past event, but only a future event, and belief is weak 
at the best, when such incredible statements are put forth as we find in 
the first of the book of Genesis. 

That first chapter of Genesis must have been invented after the pre- 



168 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tended giving the law or ten commandments on Mount Sinai, for the 
priesthood needed an excuse for taking from the industry of the people 
one-seventh of their time to propagate their imposition, but unless the 
masses who were the producers of all the wealth could be restrained from 
following their usual avocations, such as they were, and be brought 
together to receive religious instruction, the system of fraud and decep- 
tion they had 'succeeded so far in fastening on the ignorant and 
degraded people, they had under their control, the system itself would 
be lost. It would be too much of an effort to critically examine in detail 
the whole of this eleventh chapter of Hebrews, but let those who want to 
understand on what an unsubstantial foundation faith rests, read this 
mess of foolishness, and then try to apply faith to it. Of course any 
person who is disposed to refuse to use the reasoning faculties he has, 
and submit to be guided by the set of designing and unscrupulous 
impostors who are always prowling around in all ages and countries, 
and under all forms of religion and civilization, can be made to believe 
and act on any improbable and impossible story, such impostors may 
tell, and there is no so glaring an impossibility anywhere to be found, 
as are recorded in the Bible. From the beginning to the end it is a fit 
subject for the exercise of faith throughout, for: as soon as you apply the 
test of proof, or even of reason upon the absurd statements therein 
made, the grossest inconsistencies appear. 

If the worlds and all material things are to be the work of an 
almighty omnipotent God, why not assert that it was done instantly, as 
quick as thought can act, rather than use a whole day of twenty-four 
hours for each separate orders of created, or as the impostors, who are 
now on the stage, are forced by the discoveries of science to extend the 
word days to mean indefinite periods of time. Why not create the sun 
and moon before light as well as wait till the fourth day or period ot 
time to make the fountain and origin of all light, without which, light 
is impossible? Why not make man and woman at the same time, in 
the same manner and out of the same heap of mud, and let his existence 
precede all other matter instead of waiting till the last day, when in con- 
sequence of being so near exhausted by the mighty efforts of the five 
preceding days to make the most perfect and intricate of all the works 
of creation, and so in consequence made man in so big a hurry, and out 
of so poor material that it became necessary to destroy the race and 
begin again with no better success, for in order to fit any of them 
for salvation they must submit to be made over again in the mold of 
regeneration. 

This whole fictitious story is a very weak invention of some unde- 
veloped intellect in order to make the Sabbath seem to be a necessity, 



The Christian Sabbath Unauthorized. 169 

in order to get sufficient rest when if the period in which nature, by the 
operation of nature's laws, establishing night, by withholding the light 
of the sun was used for rest, no further rest would be required, and 
therefore no excuse can be made for the invention of the holy Sabbath 
day, and the want of this rest was never felt for more than two thousand 
years, when the law was pretended to have been given to Moses on 
Mount Sinai. The day of rest was there invented, and there made 
obligatory for the alleged reason that the Lord rested on the seventh day, 
but that reason was withdrawn afterwards when this same Moses gave 
another still more foolish reason for its observance, which was, "because 
in that day ye were delivered out of the hands of the Egyptians," and 
this latter reason set aside the former and would require no one, not 
Jews to observe it, but in order to escape from the obligation to observe 
the seventh day, and furnish an excuse to substitute another, the day 
of rest has been changed by- the Christians without either a command 
or a reason, or even necessity, so that Christians all rest on the day 
God worked, and work on the day he rested, a most glaring inconsist- 
ency. 

The best Hebrew and other scholars are now engaged in a desperate 
struggle to endeavor to reconcile the Bible story of creation with the 
discoveries of science, and treat the whole subject of the origin of crea- 
tion, as stated in Genesis, as an allegory, instead of literal and 
undoubted truth, hence, any further notice of the reference to those con- 
spicuous examples of faith given in this eleventh chapter of Hebrews is 
unnecessary, and if anybody is benefited in the slightest degree by such 
an explanation of faith they are welcome to all the comfort they can 
get from it. The most inexcusable outrage on the right of a person to 
their own property is recorded in the gospel as written by Mark, the 
eleventh chapter at the thirteenth verse, by the exercise of faith so called 
when the proper designation is the most horrible outrage in principle, 
en a small scale, but- might, if any better opportunity had been pre- 
sented, be extended so as to entirely destroy the right to have anything 
in security. This story stripped of its unfounded claim to superstitious 
reverence is in this way: This gang of twelve ignorant paupers, who 
in these days would be called tramps, and in those days were a scourge 
to any community, who were obliged to submit to be preyed upon, and 
support these idle wanderers led by another of the same general 
type of character, and outward appearance, but who was recognized by 
the rest, as the leader and guide of this gang, and who has always been 
looked upon as the best specimen of humility, and teacher of correct 
morals the world has ever produced, in one of their many marauding 
excursions through this God forsaken region, pretended to be, as was 



170 The Skeptic's Defense. 

usually the case, hungry, and came upon a harmless, but to its owner, a 
valuable fig tree, for the purpose of stealing the figs, but on coming 
nearer they perceived this tree bore a variety that were not yet ready to 
be eaten, and this model of virtue and humility, instead of ripening 
these figs, by the exercise of faith in his case, as practicable as it was 
to kill the tree, he curses the tree so that twenty-four hours later they in 
passing that way called his attention that the tree was dead. That 
result was just what I intended it should be, my faith was the agent I 
employed to kill that tree, and any of you can not only kill a tree, if you 
have sufficient faith, but you could do more, with more faith you could 
roll that mountain, yonder, over into the sea, with a mere command, 
so that this transaction which is related, without giving the last hint that 
any blame could be attached to any one for destroying this valuable fig 
tree, the impression is left that any act of spoliation and robbery was 
justifiable, without reimbursing the owner of the property, if it was done 
by faith. 

No explanation of the reason why Jesus Christ considered it neces- 
sary to have those twelve, stalwart, vigorous, ignorant blockheads to go 
prowling around, living on the bounty of others, who never required or 
expected any return for their generosity in supplying gratis the numer- 
ous wants of these thirteen able-bodied men, who were physically able 
to earn their living, not only, but support their dependant children, and 
relatives, who in every case they had abandoned to the tender care of 
the neighbors, among whom they lived. There is no pretence that these 
wandering vagabonds ever earned a penny in the whole three years they 
were tolerated, and they finally became so insolent and destructive, that 
measures had to be taken by society, to secure their extermination. 
This scheme was invented to secure and destroy the leader of the gang, 
who was able to carry out any scheme of plunder under the plea of an 
absolute owner of the whole universe, and all' it contained, and if'ofie 
asserting such claims, was allowed time to rally to his standard enough 
of this poor and ignorant class to become formidable, the greater would 
be the task to exterminate them. 

One outrage after another was being perpetrated, perhaps insignifi- 
cant in itself, but the principle involved being the same, a right to 
appropriate to their use what belonged to others, was justified, when 
opportunity was afforded, as is illustrated, not only by the wanton 
destruction of the fig tree, but also on a larger scale, when a large drove 
of swine were needlessly destroyed to accommodate the devil with a 
place to live. 

Another instance of outrageous spoliation is given in the first verse 
of the sixth chapter of Luke. The date of this disgraceful transaction 



What Faith is Worth to a Dying Mortal. 171 

is precisely given in the old version by inspiration, for it was more 
than two hundred years after it occurred, when this account was written, 
which is the second Sabbath- after the first when these men, as they 
usually were hungry, were hungry enough to eat raw corn, or as we 
say, wheat, and rather than ask the owner of this field of grain for food, 
they plunged into his wheat field, which was ready for the reaper, and 
destroyed more wheat in the gathering some heads to shell the wheat, 
by rubbing it on their hands, than would have fed them for a week, and 
got no food at last, for no human stomach can digest enough whole, 
uncooked wheat to satisfy hunger, and no man has any right, morally 
or legally to appropriate to his own use what belongs to another, even 
if he is hungry, besides, this was done on the holy Sabbath. Why 
not cause food to be furnished from the same storehouse it was when 
five or six thousand were fed, on less than no food, for on that occasion 
a surplus was found left after the meal, greater than was on hand at its 
beginning. The fair presumption is that it was for want of faith, and 
no answer was made to those who remonstrated with them on the injus- 
tice of the act itself and of the want of consistency, a company of men, 
who were led by one, who had made open proclamation, that " whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," was 
the proper guide for human conduct, and should not only violate his 
own precept himself, but teach its violation to others by example and do 
it on the Sabbath. This immaculate son of God justified his conduct by 
quoting what David had done two thousand years before, when he went 
into the temple of the Lord and stole a lot of bread, put there for the use 
of the priests, and robbed the priests to feed just such a lot of vagabonds 
that were with him, as were now fed in this unlawful manner. Many 
more similar examples might be cited to illustrate the worthlessness of 
this humbug called Faith, but only one more is of enough importance 
to justify the writer from giving time to write it that is its value 
on the death bed giving the sufferer, of the pangs of dissolution, 
the ability to look into the future state, and anticipate a happy termina- 
tion to the various trials and troubles inseparable to all human experi- 
ence. For the purpose of showing how destitute the strongest Faith 
must be, to impart any comfort to any dying mortal, ft is necessary to 
come to the right understanding of what death is, for then we shall 
cease to look upon it with apprehension and dread, for in no case is 
death anything but a necessary and inevitable change in nature. Life 
and death are essential conditions, and mutually follow and sustain each 
other. Flowers, plants, animals and men, are dying each moment, and 
all these are furnishing the elements or materials for new forms of life. 
One form of life is constantly built up of other forms, so that the 



172 The Skeptic's Defense. 

constituents of small plants upon decaying enter into larger ones. Large 
animals and plants are composed of the elements of smaller varieties, 
and the bodies of the human race are made up of both the vegetable 
and the animal kingdom, and therefore death is essential to life, and 
equally forms a very important part of the laws which govern the uni- 
verse. Let it then be regarded not as an enemy, but rather as a friend, 
and it is universally so regarded except where false instruction has incul- 
cated a future life of the soul only ; all savages look upon death as a mere 
rest after the toils of a wearisome day are over, nothing being to them so 
desirable or satisfactory as repose, nothing so sweet as is a peaceful,quiet 
sleep, and all of us, whether we have faith or not, are obliged at the 
close of a wearisome, troublesome life, to pass into such a rest such an 
undisturbed repose for we, none of us, and none that have ever lived, 
will ever be revived by the sound of any trumpet, to enter upon a new 
and untried life, however strong our faith or desire. 

This short word, rest, is full of meaning and consolation, far more 
satisfactory than Faith, far more suggestive of a perfect freedom from 
trouble, sorrow, and ills of all kinds, than any other word in any lan- 
guage, for the gases and fluids of which our organizations are com- 
posed, gradually disintegrate and slowly return to the fountains, and 
sources of nature, from whence they originally came, and we gently fall 
into a peaceful, quiet sleep, which knows no waking, hence no faith can 
make real what is only imaginary or rather what is false, and is never 
present only to those who have been instructed in the Christian religion, 
to a greater or less extent. Let it not be said that this view is mere 
speculation, for it is only the teaching of unerring, natural, human expe- 
rience and far more probable than any assumption gathered from false 
instruction, which theologians have invented, and based such inventions 
on a previously invented book of unknown authorship or source, which 
they falsely teach, but do not themselves believe is inspiration or super- 
natural revelation. So that religious faith is nothing but an incurable 
disease of the human brain, and therefore totally worthless and vision- 
ary, but nevertheless it is one of the most powerful levers which any 
impostor ever invented to both introduce and perpetuate any gross 
imposition, and wicked deception, and its exercise is never anything but 
a pretence, relying wholly on some physical imperfection of the human 
constitution, and is for the most part indulged in, when the object about 
which its exercise is required is so far beyond the grasp of a rightly bal- 
anced mind as to be absolutely incredible, then faith takes hold and 
makes the impossible both possible and real, for example: the great rea- 
son why the problem or origin of life is and has always been such a great 
mystery is apparent in the fact that man in his ignorance has not hitherto 



Why the Theologian Should Be Ridiculed. 173 

been able to perceive the unseen, and inscrutable causes, which underlie 
all phenomena. He naturally assumes there is or must be such a cause, 
therefore he, by or through faith has postulated such a cause, which he, 
for want of another name more exact and comprehensive has adopted 
the short word, God, or the one supreme cause of all things. These 
impostors who invented this word have preached it, and made the 
parents of all the children, teach it so long and so thoroughly, that 
every one takes it for granted, that it is undoubtedly truth without a 
thought on the part of any one, of requiring one word of proof, or even 
a hint of the cause of all things being other than by the creative energy 
of God instead of its being the unalterable operation of natural laws, so 
that to even hint a doubt of the truth or what is by the exercise of faith 
made to seem to them to be true, the existence of a personal God brings 
the one who thus offends, brings, I say, the anathemas of its supporters. 

This whole scheme, the invention of a personal God, is a very 
ingenious swindle, contrived in the outset by the medicine man of some 
tribe low down in the grade of intelligence, and then taken up and 
elaborated by the priests till it reached its climax of development in the 
Roman Catholic Pope, and it is absolutely, utterly and wholly improve- 
able in any way, or shape, or manner, or to any degree but, wholly 
assumed by the nonsense called faith, which is stronger than belief, but 
less strong than knowledge, and so all the priests of all the religions of 
the world have never been able to demonstrate a single affirmation, they 
so confidently make regarding either God or a future life. On the 
other hand when their narratives relate to knowable things, they always 
have been proved false. Their theology has been riddled and 
ridiculed a thousand times; their Bible has been proved untrue, and 
their creeds are known to be but the insane vaporings of fanatical 
deluded men, who make their living by deluding others, as they them- 
selves have been in turn deluded by those on whom they relied for 
instruction. Why then, I ask in all sincerity, should not any man who 
sees these things clearly be hostile, and the uncompromising enemy 
mentally, to that class or calling of men called priests, who continue to 
propagate and securely fasten this fearful imposition on the human 
race, in this age of light and knowledge, merely because it gives them a 
good fat living. 

In the past as well as at the present time, religion has done incal- 
culable damage in the world, both mentally and morally, for it has pre- 
vented man from advancing in a knowledge of his surroundings or 
environments, and it has prevented him from studying things which 
would have benefited him, and thus caused him to brood over fancies, 
having no foundation, in fact, and as long and as far as possible has 



174 The Skeptic's Defense. 

kept him in ignorance and mental slavery. It has always constantly 
opposed any freedom of thought and action claimed to have authority 
over man from some supernatural being called God, and used every 
means at his command to force him to see and do, that non-existent 
beings will, which is only another name for the priests will, and farther 
than that, religion has authorized the church, through all its history, to 
torture him, to enslave him, and to make of him a brute as well as a vic- 
tim. This same church, influenced by religion, and in its name, has 
been guilty of committing the most horrible atrocities of which history 
has preserved any record and so deceived men as to cause them to act 
against their own best interests, and aided the strong to oppress the 
weak by proclaiming a subjection to their rulers, to be God's will and 
command. The church never looks forward but is always looking 
backward, and crying to its victims to keep back, and it thus has been 
the strong ally of the most infamous despots, the main stay of barbar- 
ous civilizations and the active repressor of all attempts to gain more 
liberty. There is no branch of science it has not opposed, and no 
important achievement of man it has not characterized as thwarting 
the will of God, and it never, in all its centuries of dishonor and crime 
was the first to seek the betterment of the human race. It has killed 
the pioneers of liberty and of science and in whatever country it has had 
the power, it has made that country either a cemetery or an intellectual 
slave pen, for in former times it killed, when and where it could not 
repress, but now it simply represses because it cannot kill, so that these 
charges being true, is there one good reason why all good men should 
not be hostile to such a religion. While the priest being so instructed 
that it is unavoidable can speak fluently, and in some degree eloquently, 
it is the sound of his voice, that is to him so exquisite, and he also fan- 
cies it is to his audience, as to be of more consequence than the clear- 
ness of his ideas, which though weak, are so abundant as to both deceive 
himself and others, and make it to appear that he is full of the fire which 
purifies, and the instruction which transforms. This person is a sample 
of a large class of selfish egotists, that when the test of ability is applied, 
are found entirely wanting there. 

Every free thinker is not only justified, but it is also his bounden 
duty, to as much as in him lies, oppose this vile, enormous swindle 
called the Christian religion, as well as all supernatural superstitions of 
every kind, because they none of them have the least foundation, in fact 
and as Christianity is one form of supernaturalism we are obliged to 
oppose it because it is not true, and because it has done, and is doing 
an almost infinite amount of damage in the portion of the world where 
it has fastened its unholy influence. So far as any human being knows, 



How New Systems Strive for Stability. 175 

or ever will or can know, there was never any such being on this earth 
at any time as the fictitious character the four gospels have introduced, 
and named Jesus Christ, or any deity the Jews have invented, and who 
is held up by the Christian world as his father, and no such localities as 
heaven or hell, and the stories their Bible puts forth as to the creation 
of the universe or the plan of redemption, to repair the damage done 
by the fall of man from virtue and purity, are all equally false. There 
never was a child born of a virgin, and there will never be one such, 
and there never either was or will be a miracle wrought, except such as 
are apparent by artifice or legerdemain, and these are admitted by those 
that do them to be deceptions. There never was a dead man brought 
to life or one who went to hell and staid three days, and then rose out 
of hell, and went to heaven by way of the earth, and finally there never 
was any human being benefited by the death of any other human being, 
so as to alter .his destination, and there never will be, so what is the use 
of speculation. 

It is to be expected, of course, that any new or old system of belief 
in any kind of religion must rest its claims to notice and try to secure 
its acceptance, or adoption, on some alleged or asserted superiority over 
any of its rivals, and in proportion as such superiority can be, and is 
established and acquiesced in, it is in that proportion able to begin and 
continue a more or less prosperous career of imposition and deception, 
and therefore it becomes necessary to invent specious or plausible 
arguments to demonstrate such superiority, and from time to time 
as changes in conditions make it seem to be necessary, some able theo- 
logian is selected to apologize and defend such dogmas as have by his 
predecessors been put forth to create or seem to create a reason why 
such dogmas or doctrines are either claimed to be true or necessary 
and this practice has been conspicuously necessary to establish 
the Christian religion in its first inception and its propagation 
and in justifying its right to even exist, for by what right or even neces- 
sity did Christianity ever have or what excuse can its originators ever 
give to the world, sufficient to justify the outrage to domineer over the 
religious convictions of their fellow men, or to force itself on the atten- 
tion of mankind when universal man had always been supplied with 
moral and religious systems to them satisfactory, and they neither 
required or needed any other, and it is therefore an outrage to begin 
another imposition to divide, distract; and make miserable all who 
could be persuaded to come within its influence, but ambition for 
notoriety, and a supposed ability to organize or invent some change so 
as to secure such notoriety, operated so strongly on some hitherto 
obscure individuals, sufficient to cause them to co-operate and finally to 



176 The Skeptic's Defense. 

begin this Christian imposition, at a time when the former imposition 
of Judaism had been obliged to disband, and was threatened, as a sys- 
tem, with absolute annihilation, and these ambitious but obscure Jews 
conceived the plan of uniting with the intelligent pagans among whom 
they had been dispersed by their conquerors, and thus they began, 
what after much discussion, concession and amalgamation finally devel- 
oped into what has since been known as Christianity. Those who now 
live at this distance from the time when this form of religion had its 
origin cannot have any but the faintest conception of the wonderful and 
fierce controversies that were had to reach an agreement on any import- 
ant doctrine, or such as were thought by these first inventors or impost- 
ors to be material, such as to agree upon the way to originate a founder 
or head that would meet the requirements they considered necessary, 
and this was finally agreed upon, by the invention of a hero or prin- 
cipal character, they named Jesus Christ, who never actually lived, but 
was a purely fictitious character, who the inventors tried to delineate as 
a perfect model, but signally failed, for the writer to whom was assigned 
the duty of writing this fictitious story of the gospel narratives was not 
equal to the task of producing moral perfection,; but such as they are, 
they have come down to us as the four gospels, whose names are also 
fictitious, for there is no evidence that either Matthew, Mark, Luke or 
John ever lived, or wrote a word of these gospels, and the identity of 
the writers can never be known, and in fact, it is of no great importance, 
but whoever they were, there was contemporaneous with them, other 
equally able meii who had to be conciliated and persuaded to adopt such 
initial doctrines or dogmas, as were introduced, as well as such as were 
from time to time added as the development of such a system required, 
or seemed to require to give stability and perpetuity to it, and this was 
the beginning or the origin of theology which is itself a pure invention, 
but not a science as its originators and their successors impudently 
claim it is, for on this false claim is founded the inferior system of apolo- 
getics, which has for its end and aim only the vindication of its right to 
exist, not only of theology, as it is applied to Christianity, but also of 
Christianity itself as such a right in its early introduction was energeti- 
cally disputed by men in all respects as honest and able as those were 
who were its inventors and supporters, for these opponents argued that 
so long as Christianity lies hid in the consciousness, or as it were in the 
minds of the men of the church without assuming an external or objec- 
tive form, or so long as it remains, only in the form of a force impelling 
men to moral actions, there is no great need of controversy or opposi- 
tion, but that whenever or wherever Christianity attempts to force its 
way by theological quibbles and intricacies, into the circle of the exact 



The Disputes of Theologians Noticed. 177 

sciences, its entrance therein has been so far disputed, and must ever 
continue to be, for it has had to meet fierce and hostile criticism in its 
even/ step of progress, but the effort has not yet been abandoned. 

All sciences, or nearly all change in some of their aspects,, but this 
change in them is orderly and progressive, is not of a radical nature, but 
such as is made necessary by some new discovery, that when it becomes 
established and demonstrated, merely adds to its previous attainment, 
but unlike the changes in science, the changes in theological speculation 
only result in abandoning one untenable theory, and substituting 
another, having a greater probability of success, but will in like manner, 
on trial, have to be abandoned. The first Christian theologians were 
charged by their contemporaries with! rank atheism, and they had to 
meet that charge and endeavor to disprove it, and it was without much 
success. There were arrayed on one side, able writers, both Jews and 
pagans, and the inventors of Christianity on the other side, but the 
Chiistian writers and theologians after some three hundred years of 
fierce debate finally seemingly triumphed over their adversaries, but not 
by convincing arguments, so much as by the fires of persecution, having 
secured the aid of the secular arm by the pretended conversion of the 
pagan emperor, Constantine, than whom a more disreputable villain 
never lived. 

The early Christians were also charged with the most gross immoral- 
ities, and had to meet that well-founded charge as best they were able, 
but they have never been able to disprove it, and it has never been with- 
drawn, and is now made by its foes, and candor compels the admission 
that the enormous vices inseparable from all Christian nations give 
abundant reason to continue the charge, and a just comparison with 
other forms of religion will prove the charge to be well founded, for the 
two vices of intemperance and licentiousness will alone overbalance all 
vices pertaining to all other forms, and the principal reason why this 
charge is made and so strenuously insisted on is because the Christian 
theologian sets up the claim of superiority in the Christian morality over 
all others, when there is no warrant for either its mysteries or its supe- 
rior morality, as can be amply proved, both from its history and its 
present position, for it only in its first inception, was founded on impos- 
ture, and has ever since been maintained and perpetuated by trickery, 
and at. the present time theology is m a transition state, brought about 
by being compelled to adjust itself with science and vindicate its claim 
to a supernatural origin, which it can never do. 

It is well known by all scholars, as well as those who have adopted the 
calling of theological professors, and their students who have, by receiv- 
ing instruction become ministers of the gospel, as those who have 



178 The Skeptic's Defense. 

adooted other professions, that in the early centuries of the Christian 
era, so-called, say about from the second to the fourth, there were 
numerous able writers on religious subjects, who were eminent both for 
their piety and ability, and who are now known as apostolic fathers, 
whose writings to the number of fifty or more, have come down to our 
times. The most conspicuous of these are Clemens, Romanus, Poly- 
carp, Ignatius, Barnabas, and Hermes. These claimed, or their suc- 
cessors claimed, in their behalf, that they were the associates of some of 
the apostles, or those who are said to be the writers of the epistles of the 
new testament, who were introduced as subordinate or inferior charac- 
ters, to substantiate the fiction of the four gospels, as accessories to 
prove the first imposition, such as Peter and Paul, whose writings were 
received into the canon of inspired revelation, but these others were 
rejected by a vote of the council of Nice, and therefore did not find a 
place in our new testament, but previous to this decision of this council 
these writings had always been permitted to be read publicly, on the 
Sabbath, in all Christian assemblies, till the year three hundred and 
twenty-five, and no general reader can at the present time perceive any 
reason why they should have been rejected, for they seem as much per- 
meated with reverence and sanctity as any of either of the epistles of 
Peter or Paul, so the only reasonable conclusion must be that some one 
or more personal reasons must have been urged before the council, that 
had the result to exclude these writings, and which will never be known. 

There never was any date given by any critic or other person to any 
writing found in either the old or new testament, or anything better than 
a guess who was the author of any fragment of the Holy Bible, or the 
time it was written. As an illustration of the nature of the subjects that 
came before the council of Nice, and were debated in a fierce manner, 
and at great length, is that in reference to a theologian of ability and 
influence, named Arius, which after a long and sanguinary debate, was 
decided adversely to Arius, and the decision resulted in his persecution, 
his excommunication, and his banishment to a heathen city in Illyria 
and from his apostacy and writings has in these days developed the now 
popular sect named Unit Arians, who regard the Christ of the gospels 
as only a good man, but not divine. Any one who takes the trouble 
can find the Nicene creed in the Episcopal and Roman Catholic prayer 
book, and in subsistence is as follows: "As God is eternal, so is his 
son, Jesus Christ, for he is and was present in God, without a birth, 
ever begotten or an unbegotten — begotten. An eternal God, an eternal 
Son, for the son is from God himself." 

Arius says, truthfully and rightfully, that this is only rank blas- 
phemy, for I maintain that Christ simply was created by the will of God, 



Comparison of Theologians With Philosophy. 179 

and endowed with his own father's glorious perfections, yet not so that 
the father did thereby deprive himself of any perfections or attributes, 
which are his without origination, he being the source of all things. 
The son, on the other hand, is originate, begotten by the father, so 
that therefore he is not co-eternal with the father, or co-unbegotten with 
him, as if there were two unbegotten principles, but God the father is 
before all things as single, and the principle of all, and therefore he 
is before Christ also, or in other and plainer words, he, the Christ, is 
of a substance that once was not, for there was a time when no Christ 
existed. 

Now, I, who write these lines, am firmly of the opinion, that this is 
a sample of the hair splitting of the theological world, at the present 
time, and the whole there is of value in the present theological training 
of any and every orthodox minister or priest of the present day, in 
every branch of the Christian church, and it results in so dwarfing and 
contracting the intellects of the priests, and making prominent supersti- 
tious bigotry, in all the Christian ministry, as to make them not only a 
useless clog on any .community that is cursed with their presence, and 
unworthy of any support or encouragement, but also a nest of vile and 
infernal scoundrels, in an intellectual way, and of not much short of that 
in a moral way. When we turn our attention to such philosophers as 
Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, and such scientists as Copernicus, Gal- 
lileo and Newton, and such travelers as Humboldt, Stanley and Living- 
stone, and estimate the benefit they have conferred on the world at 
large, when compared to all the popes, cardinals, bishops and priests 
that have ever lived, we can see why the former were a benefit to the 
world of humanity, and the latter only a curse and damage. 

There can be no doubt among scholars of the present day that 
Aristotle was in many respects, if not in most or all, the most gifted 
mind 'among the ancients living some five hundred years before the 
Christian era, and that without any flattery or false estimate of his abili- 
ties, he was without a rival, supreme, because he alone treated of every 
subject which came within the range of ancient thought in both its 
scope, and form better than any one else did or could. He also initi- 
ated many new branches of inquiry, dependent on observation and 
induction, and thus not only represented in himself the culmination of 
Greek philosophy, both speculative and real, but was also as far as he 
possibly could be, the forerunner of modern science, and his works alone 
without any aid from either Christ or Moses, have actually saved the 
human race from barbarism, and rescued them from a savage state, 
and he has been named by the strongest and best minds, modern civili- 
zation has produced, as the master of those who know, and the head and 



180 The Skeptic's Defense. 

center of the philosophic family, and all great poets are proud to 
acknowledge him the equal in that department of any that ever wrote 
poetry, but our bigoted, fanatical, narrow-minded theologians and 
clergy, sneer at his name and achievements, and associate it with unut- 
terable infamy, just as they do that of Tom Payne, who in many respects, 
was the equal of Aristotle, and was by such men as Thomas Jefferson, 
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, considered a fit associate 
with themselves, and they felt it to be both an honor and a privilege to 
have the benefit of his counsel in the formation of the only free and 
independent government the world has ever seen, and they were proud 
to acknowledge that it was by his genius that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was written by Jefferson, which is now regarded by the best 
intelligence of every patriot in the world, as the ablest state paper ever 
written by man, or at least by any American. 

Perhaps it may be considered by those who have always been 
instructed to see or notice conspicuously only what it commendable in 
the life of any one who has lived in any community out of place or at 
least improper to comment on the adverse side, and point out some of 
the faults which are never alluded to by the speaker, or minister, who 
officiates at the funeral services of the departed, on account of a feeling 
of delicacy or want of propriety to such friends, who more or less sin- 
cerely mourn the loss of such departed friend. This course is com- 
monly resorted to, also in the biographer who writes the life of any 
noted person, for only such traits as are universally thought to be praise- 
worthy, are made prominent, and the objectionable traits are either not 
mentioned, or if mentioned at all only by way of apology or excuse. 
There has been no limit to the amount of fulsome eulogy indulged in by 
those who have either written the Life of Jesus Christ, or have preached, 
so to speak, his funeral sermons, for the last, at least fifteen hundred 
years, and all this has been done without any facts, or none sufficient to 
warrant any such fulsome or flattering eulogies, for in fact, if we are 
simple and credulous enough to admit he ever lived at all, nothing 
whatever is actually known concerning his life and death, but a few faint 
and unsatisfactory glances at his career which was of such a brief, pub- 
lic duration, only lasting about one year, between his baptism, till his 
execution, and so private as to give but little opportunity for his 
biographers, who wrote the four gospels, to say but very little about 
him, either good, bad or indifferent, for they have inadvertently disclosed 
some bad traits of character, which has been overlooked, as well by 
those who have read what is in the gospel narratives, and those who 
have interpreted them to those who look to them for instruction, but a 
close scrutiny of these gospels by any person, who can be candid and 



i Why the Miracles of Christ Were Few. 181 

unbiased by a feeling of reverence, so as to regard the new testament 
writings the same as any other ancient writings of a similar nature, will 
perceive that both good and evil was as much present in the acts and 
teachings of Jesus Christ, as were found in the average of those among 
whom he is said to have lived,and while it is asserted that he went about 
doing good by his uninspired admirers, who only look at one side of his 
acts and teachings, they all fail to specify any particular acts not con- 
nected with miraculous cures and exploits, which are neither good 
or bad, because impossible of verification, and absolutely incred- 
ible, and no other of his best acts or teachings are any better than men 
in all ages and countries have always done and thought, therefore it 
seems proper to examine more closely this question with a design of 
ascertaining how far is this one-sided eulogy justifiable. All acts 
whether good or bad, must be judged of, to a considerable extent by the 
motives that prompted the act, and while we may, and perhaps must con- 
cede that the act in itself is good and beneficial in its results, yet the 
motive that precedes and prompts the act may be such as to neutralize 
and destroy its value to the one who put forth such an act. 

When we separate from the recorded praiseworthy acts of Christ, 
which we are obliged to regard as miraculous, very little is left, so it is 
evident that it would be a monstrous act of injustice for one who was 
comoetent to perform a miracle of such magnitude as to raise the dead 
to life, after decomposition had begun to reduce the material of which 
the body was composed back to its original elements, to refuse to confer 
any asked for benefit, or one even seen and known to be necessary on 
one person, and bestow it on another, supposing the conditions to be 
alike in both cases, for that partiality would reveal an unworthy 
motive which so far would diminish its value to the credit of the being 
who performed the act, or cure, as to entirely destroy it, for no being 
who can at pleasure work a miracle can be excused for refusing to do it 
when it was applied for, and shown to be necessary, without any reference 
to the applicant. If we examine with the required care the instances in 
the gospel record where Christ acted in a miraculous way to cure disease, 
for instance,that in order to make these instances appear to be both more 
numerous and conspicuous, all three of the first gospels, and in some few 
cases all four of the gospels have recorded the same incident wilh perhaps, 
in some cases a slight variation, and the same course has been adopted in 
most of the parables and other forms of teaching, and the various other 
incidents such as the last supper, the arrest, trial and execution, are many 
times repeated, when once was sufficient, but this course was no doubt 
intentionally adopted to cause the casual or the careless reader to be 
impressed, not only with the value, but also the vast number of his 



182 The Skeptic's Defense. 

gGod and praiseworthy acts, to both his contemporaries and their suc- 
cessors. 

There cannot be found the slightest evidence that Jesus Christ had 
a particle of education, or so much as to be able to either read or write, 
and none of his answers to any of the difficult questions to which he 
was often obliged to find a suitable answer, show him to be able to 
more than give, in many instances, no answer at all, and in others, 
simply an evasive answer, but in no case, a direct satisfactory answer, 
showing very clearly that he had natural ability, or acquired ability of 
only the average, or below the average of his contemporaries, and those 
he selected for his associates, were likewise of the same low grade of 
intelligence, and they from the nature of the calling they were engaged 
in, when they were notified that Christ desired their soul elevating soci- 
ety, precludes us from having the faintest suspicion, they were any- 
thing better or more refining than ignorant loafers, and it is one of the 
worst blemishes that can be attached to his moral character, that he not 
only chose such a vile, low set as his most intimate friends and associ- 
ates, and it is also an unexplained mystery what use he could expect 
to make of such a low, ignorant set of twelve able bodied men, anyhow, 
for it must have been an intolerable burden and nuisance on any com- 
munity to be obliged to feed, clothe, and lodge thirteen strong, healthy, 
able bodied men, who, so far as recorded, never did in the slightest way 
or degree, make or offer to make the least recompense for all this gratu- 
itous generosity, but so far from it, they on the other hand, instead of 
being grateful, seemed to delight to annoy and wantonly destroy the 
property of those on whom they forced themselves, both uninvited and 
unexpected, for when they found no figs on a tree to steal, when it was 
out of season, and they had no reason to expect there was any, he, 
Christ, not only killed the tree, but afterwards justified the act by brag- 
ging how much faith he had in comparison with the weak faith these 
loafers had who might not only kill all the trees on yonder mountain, 
but also throw the mountain into the sea, if they only had plenty of 
faith, and treated this wanton destruction of this fig tree as though it was 
a mere unimportant incident, when it was for anything that we know, to 
the contrary, or which appears in the account which is repeated three 
times, one of the sources of income to some poor man who could ill 
afford to have the figs stolen, much less to lose the tree itself. If this 
is doing unto others as you would that they should do to you, when 
you reverse the conditions, the less you have of such morality the better 
you are off. 

Another like instance of wilful damage is recorded when these thir- 
teen able bodied men, who were, it would seem, always hungry, instead 



Some Evil Conduct Noticed. 183 

of going into the owner's house, who owned a certain field of wheat, 
which was ready for the sickle, and asking for bread, with which to sat- 
isfy their hunger, they preferred to steal enough of his uncut wheat, and 
actually did so, and in doing so trampled down under their feet, and 
destroyed wheat enough to make more bread than would have been 
required to feed them, and besides they broke the legal Sabbath, and the 
meanest part of the whole disgraceful story is, that when he was 
accused of this rascally thieving, he justified it because David went into 
the temple more than a thousand years before, and stole a lot of bread 
that had been provided for the priest, thus not only stealing bread, but 
cheating the priests out of their dinner,and it was lucky for them that the 
owner of the field was at the synagogue instead of being at home, or he 
would have had them arrested, if he could not have driven them away, 
and perhaps he did, but the writer of the story forgot to mention it. 
This: is another specimen of moral conduct, not worthy of imitation, 
and must not be included in the list referred to in the maxim, " He 
went about doing good," for this was doing evil. 

Another specimen of evil conduct is on record, and lest it should not 
be known, far and near, it is repeated in three gospels, about the crazy 
man, the devil and the hogs, where it is represented that the meek and 
lowly Lord of heaven and earth coaxed the devil, after much parleying, 
to vacate his home in the crazy man's body, and reside in a drove of two 
thousand hogs thaf were close by, which frightened the hogs so, that 
they ran and jumped off a precipice into the sea and were all a total loss 
to their owner, causing a damage to him of not less than twenty thous- 
and dollars, if you estimate each hog worth the small sum of ten dol- 
lars, which was the cause, no doubt of the man's ruin, that owned the 
hogs. This was doing good with a wholesale vengeance, for this poor 
man, or whether rich or poor, had no redress, for 4 these men were not 
worth the clothes they wore, for Christ had said in his public discourse 
the he, the son of man, had not where to lay his head. 

Another instance occurs about stealing the jackass, when Christ 
was about to enter Jerusalem, for the first and only time he was ever 
there, when he had discovered a prophecy somewhere that He construed 
to mean that he was to ride to Jerusalem on an ass or a colt, the foal 
of an ass, on which never man sat, so he sent some of these loafers, who 
were with him to do his bidding, to a certain place where another of 
these loafers had stole a jackass, and tied him to a hitching post, and 
told him to untie him and bring him to Christ, which he did, and Christ 
being suspicious that they might get into trouble, told them to say to 
any person who so interfered with them, as to ask them what they were 
going to do with the colt, to reply, " The Lord hath need of him, and 



184 The Skeptic's Defense. 

then all will be right," and whatever became of the jackass after the ride 
was finished inspiration has never revealed, so if that performance dif- 
fers from stealing, pray tell us wherein, but this may be an explanation 
why Christ abolished the ten commandments,and substituted in their 
place two of his own make, so that the eighth of the laws of Moses, 
which says, " Thou shalt not steal," was not in force, and hence stealing 
is doing exactly to others as you would wish others to do to you, and 
is a fair sample of Christian morality, both in individuals and the Christ- 
ian church, and nations, and if every disreputable act that this gang of 
thirteen loafers did was recorded, there is no longer any wonder they 
were so numerous, and so outrageous, that longer forbearance with 
them became impossible, and so they were forcibly exterminated by 
executing the leader of the gang, and dispersing the other twelve, and 
that was supposed would end the whole business. 

A proper sense of modesty causes the writer to refrain to notice, with 
much minuteness the association of this immaculate teacher of mor- 
ality with the female sex, who sharply reproved his own mother on sev- 
eral occasions, when to do so must have been to her a source of great 
mortification, and at the same time it showed him to be brutal, and 
unfeeling, to a degree that was not to his credit, but he took great notice 
of one Mary Magdalene, who by all accounts, must have been known 
in that vicinity as a disreputable woman, for the first we hear of her, 
was that she was relieved of seven devils, by Christ casting them out of 
her, but whether he got them all out so that she was pure enough for 
him to associate with her, without contracting moral defilement, is 
not disclosed, but it is certain from further accounts that she was anxious 
to be noticed by him, and actually thrust herself, uninvited, into the 
house where Christ was being fed, with his whole gang of followers, 
and annointed his feet with a costly fragrant ointment, and wiped off 
the surplus with her long hair, and when the spectators remonstrated 
with him (Christ), he replied that she did this to prepare him for his 
burial, and this act of this woman in such a place and time showed at 
the best an unwarrantable intimacy and familiarity that attracted the 
notice of the guests at the feast, so that he was afterwards charged by 
them with associating with her, when he knew, as they all, did, that she 
was a sinner, which word, signified with them, more than moral deprav- 
ity, and this woman was the first to see him after his death and resurrec- 
tion. 

But the priests of our day, unlike the priests of that day, put a very 
pious construction on all this and would regard any other suspicion as 
rank blasphemy, but it is to be remarked that appearances often justify 
unfavorable remarks, when but for them, it would not be regarded as 



The Water and Wine Miracle. 185 

anything, more than ordinary, innocent conduct, hence a teacher of 
morality should never give occasion by his own conduct for any unfavor- 
able suspicions for more harm is thus done to morality than would be 
the case, if no such claim was made, and when you are called upon in 
addition to this instance to examine another similar case, of a vile 
woman, who the Jews had caught in the lapse from virtue, called adul- 
tery, which was a violation of the seventh Mosaic law or commandment, 
which was punishable with death by stoning, and these Jews, before 
inflicting this extreme penalty, brought her to Christ, to see if he would 
approve or disapprove the penalty which was decreed by Moses to be 
proper for such an offence. Moses says, " such as her shall be stoned,'' 
now what do you say. I say : " Let the one of you that is without sin," 
meaning that particular sin of adultery, " cast the first stone." What a 
foolish answer that was to such a question, but the account says these 
men all confessed their guilt of this crime, and therefore they all 
deserved this penalty as much as she did, and so they all left. Now any 
fool can see with half an eye that if all the Jew males that were in that 
room had been privately guilty of that crime, and had not been detected 
they were as much obliged to assist in stoning this woman as if they 
were as spotless as an infant, but this absurd story ends with the annul- 
in g and justifying that violation of the law of Moses, in this case, and all 
the punishment she gets is a warning to not be caught at it again. 

Such a decision to such an offence, would seem to encourage adul- 
tery, but you must be private about it so as not to be caught. The 
revised version of the new testament, says this whole story is nothing 
but a forgery by some former revisers, for no ancient manuscript con- 
tains any such story, and for the credit of morality it is to be hoped that 
this story should be blotted out entirely, but none of the old mossback- 
theologians would, for a moment listen to any proposition to omit one 
word of this disreputable story, which to put the most charitable con- 
struction on, it, that it will possibly bear, leaves a stain on the moral 
character of Christ, and a teaching which ought to be avoided in a sys- 
tem so near divine. 

Another instance is found in the account of the water and wine 
story, or miracle, recorded in the second chapter of the fourth gospel, 
which, while not directly charging Christ with a drunken debauch, and 
of assisting to provide the means to continue it when without any more 
wine being furnished, it was beyond the bounds of decency for such 
respectability as any temperance society can tolerate at this day, so that 
while it may be conceded that perhaps Christ was not drunk, himself, 
no such concession can be made with reference to the rest of the com- 
pany, for having such an additional ample supply of good wine, did 



186 The Skeptic's Defense. 

undoubtedly result in no less than a prolonged drunken debauch with 
the women as well as the men, who were there, for in those days, women 
and men alike drank wine freely, but at all events this is a poor place 
to find an immaculate teacher of morality, and a bad example to find 
recorded in an inspired revelation, that is the foundation of a system of 
morality, more perfect than any or all others. More lapses from strict 
morality might be cited, but these are enough to neutralize the unau- 
thorized statement that Christ went about doing good and only good. 

There can be no doubt or dispute about the proposition that in a gen- 
eral way, a conciliatory and accommodating disposition, either to avoid 
contention or strife, either physical or mental, or if it is not possible to 
wholly avoid it instead of being obstinate and aggressive, hateful and 
denunciatory, offensive and arbitrary, the reverse of these traits gives 
better results, and is far more satisfactory than contention, outrage, 
abuse, and vituperation, and universal humanity alwavs has been sen- 
sible of that fact and, needed not to be reminded of it afresh by Jesus 
Christ in his sermon on the Mount, in which he not only recommends 
actual non-resistance in physical, as well as mental contests, and it is 
there carried to such an unwarrantable and an impossible extreme, that 
he himself should be the last one to violate his own precepts. 

What the cause was that operated on the meek and inoffensive dispo- 
sition which Christ there taught, was to distinguish his own conduct 
and that of his followers in all ages, to call forth and excuse the severe 
denunciations he pronounced against the Scribes and Pharisees, which 
we find in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, Mark 12-40, Luke 
20-47, is not revealed, but he must have been fearfully excited with both 
wrath and hate to denounce them in so severe a manner with such hate- 
ful charges as are repeated in nearly the whole chapter, and finally to 
send them all to hell and' damnation, as he did at the thirty-third verse 
of this chapter, clearly teaching that there is a hell and damnation, too, 
and that these to whom he addressed these words were pretty certain to 
experience both of these destinies in rturn for their vile conduct, not 
realizing that this would be inflicting an infinite punishment for a 
finite sin. 

Now these charges were either true or false, but in neither case 
•was it his duty, nor had he any right to reprove them, and no good 
purpose would be likely to result from these severe denunciations,for very 
likely they retaliated on him and gave him as severe a reprimand as he 
gave them, and no good resulted to them or to the world by this exhibi- 
tion of spite and anger. We, however get but one side of this disgrace- 
ful scene, like as we do in scripture, of nearly all others, and that the 
side most favorable, for the favorite, whose conduct must be justified at 
whatever cost to truth and justice. 



Where was Jesus Christ Crucified? 187 

Again we are informed in the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, 
Christ went into the temple and that he got so violently mad, or angry, 
at some persons who had no doubt got leave to do so from the proper 
authority, because no one can trespass upon so sacred a place as any 
temnle is, without the required leave to occupy a certain spot, which was 
not required for the use of the priests, in which to pursue their several 
avocations, to trade in certain goods, and very likely not only had leavt 
from the trustees, but also paid a required sum to the trustees as a rent 
for the use of this desirable location, and had a right to be there, but 
Christ comes along and without any pretence or show of right, takes a 
scourge of small cords, similar to our cat of nine tails, such as criminals 
are whipped with, when sentenced for a crime, and forcibly drove all 
these persons away from these localities, and sharply reproved them for 
daring to be where they had a right to be, but he did not even pretend to 
have any right to drive them away, but he, as usual, had with him these 
twelve men, who used very vigorous language as well as physical 
force, and therefore no resistance was offered. This incident is not 
referred to only as it reveals an exercise of an outrageous interference in 
what was none of his business, for he neither owned the temple, or had 
any official authority to enter it, for the privilege to so much as worship 
there, much less to interfere with those who were there by right, for all 
who enter any shrine in any form of religion, do so in obedience to strict 
regulations, so as to prevent the presence of any vile or unworthy per- 
sons, which would defile it even by their unholy presence. 

Every sincere and honest Christian believer will concede, without 
the least hesitation, that if there is any question relating to Christianity 
more important than any other, or in fact than all others, it is whether or 
not Jesus Christ, or such an one as the gospels describe and name as 
such, ever lived at all in Palestine ; and another next to that in import- 
ance, if the first has been clearly and satisfactorily proved, is, was he 
ever crucified; and if this has also been clearly and unmistakably proved, 
another still has to be settled, and that is, where he w-as crucified, and by 
whom? For in the four gospels the writers thereof, whoever they were, 
all four agree that he was crucified in or near Jerusalem, in Palestine; 
but the writer of the book of Revelations, who all Christians say was the 
same person who wrote the fourth gospel, and that he wrote Revelations 
after he wrote the fourth gospel, asserts at the eleventh chapter and 
eighth verse that he was crucified in Egypt ; so that there is a contradic- 
tion by the same writer, which amounts to a mistake in inspiration, or 
revelation, on a fundamental question, for a right solution of which an 
urgent necessity exists, and must be had, or the whole imposition must 
be abandoned, for if he was crucified in Egypt, it was not done by the 



188 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Jews. Another important matter to be attended to is of the same 
importance to all other religions as to the Christian: The derivation 
and definition of the word religion, for both its root and the thing itself, 
implies the trade mark of mental slavery, by its teaching and assum- 
ing that universal man owes allegiance and obedience to God, his sup- 
posed creator. 

The Latin word ligo means in that language, " to bind," and re-ligo 
means to rebind, or bind again more secure than before was the case, 
and that latin word religo has been translated religion by our Bible 
revisers, and is used so as to relate to one who has been by these priests 
converted, and thus brought under or within the second bondage, or 
allegiance, and again bound or rebound, and in this way is the mental 
bondage born, which is the new birth, or regeneration, and which is 
ever afterwards nourished and cultivated by the priest, so that he may 
become what he is under all forms of religion, the tyrant over the 
mental slaves whom he has created, nourished and brought to 
maturity. 

The parties to this mental bondage are the so-called creator, who is 
the priest, on the one hand, and man, the recreated, on the other, or a 
potentate and a peon, which signifies master and slave, united by the 
hateful " ligo " or bond, and all this absurdity is the abominable out- 
come of the senseless, wicked fiction of the fall of the first created man 
from innocence and virtue; for before this theological discovery was 
made there was on the part of man only fear, superstition and blind 
fetichism, but no religion, and leligion, instead of being a beautiful 
thing, or if you please to call it so, an acquisition, and in accord with 
his nature, it is only an unmitigated curse, and a continual damage to 
any man's intellectual faculties, no matter what name you give it, of 
soul, mind, or what not, because it holds it back and distorts it out of its 
proper proportions and functions, and tends strongly to both insanity 
and idiocy. 

Ethics, uprightness, veracity and altruism of both humanity and 
civilization, are crowning attainments high above religion, and these 
are all simply the products of morality, and everybody not a mere fool 
must know that morality is as foreign to religion as history is from 
friction or gravitation, and morality alone has in the past done every- 
thing towards modifying human character and institutions that has 
been done, and is yet competent without any aid from religion to do in 
the future what is required to purify and elevate the world, so as to 
make it all that man can desire, because man has always and will for- 
ever evolve morality as a legitimate result of practical benevolence. 

Religion has never done anything better than to disturb social condi- 



The First Desire for Knowledge Legitimate. 189 

tions and create meddlesome damage and continual evil, and has never 
in its history contributed one single item of knowledge to mankind, 
because it is not now, or it never was in the past, a friend of knowl- 
edge, and so far as its friendship for knowledge goes, the first divine 
lie recorded in the Bible w r as perpetrated in support of ignorance as 
against knowledge, and so to curse Adam for an act which was a both 
natural and noble desire for knowledge, and a curse pronounced for 
such desire, and a premium given for continued ignorance; and this is 
the lie: Man did not die, as God said he would, if he ate of the 
knowledge fruit, but lived, as Satan or desire to both get knowledge and 
live, as Satan truly said to him he would, and thus the taking and eating 
the forbidden fruit was merely an eye opener for Adam, for truth and 
veracity were then and there at issue with falsehood and error. 

A divine falsehood failed, and the truth of the devil stood fast, and 
this is a religious episode in its own behalf, but there is no moral beauty 
in sight here, for the body and soul of morality is knowledge, while the 
only ,soul or body any form of religion has is ignorance, unless you 
insist that superstition also has a body and soul ; and religion always is 
based on a fear that all things may some day or time, which it has 
named the judgment day, be explained; but knowledge, which is the 
soul of civilization, always desires and persistently seeks after an 
explanation of all phenomena, now, or as soon as one can be made that 
will permit of demonstration. 

Ignorance is the soul of every form of religion, for the all nothing- 
ness is the soul of the unknowable and mysterious mystery upon mys- 
tery, or the mystery of our existence is all the soul religion has, and 
that explanation is its only purpose and its ultimate goal, which it will 
never reach or even approach any nearer than it was when it first 
started in its pursuit, and so far from any of its aims being either beauti- 
ful or useful, they are only hideous deformity, a stultifier, a curse, a men- 
tal dissipation. 

Does not your reason say that something cannot spring from noth- 
ing? It does, and says so truly, but religion on the other hand says, 
all things were made out of nothing. Reason says every person must 
meet the result of his own acts; religion, on the contrary, says that 
through or by faith the crucified savior takes the load off the guilty 
shoulders. Reason says, three into one will go no times, and leaves no 
remainder; religion says, three gods will go into one god, and leave 
enough over to make faith enough to be able to cause you to swallow 
that, and every other absurdity. Reason says that a wise man pru- 
dently looks forward to to-morrow, and provides for it; religion of the 
best kind, as its votaries assert, bv the instruction of their leader and 



190 The Skeptic's Defense. 

founder, says emphatically and plainly, in the sermon on the Mount, 
" take no thought for or about the morrow ; " so Christ, the inventor and 
promulgator of that vile precept, with his twelve tramps, sets a public 
example both of idleness and poverty, and thus makes himself and his 
gang of twelve, able bodied, idle vagabonds an intolerable, unendurable 
burden on any region where they happened to locate, and that example 
has been ever since, and is now followed by all priests of all religions; 
and these priests always have been an intolerable burden and curse 
whenever and wherever they have intruded their unholy and unwel- 
comed presence. 

There never was the least particle of honesty or sincerity in any 
form or mode of baptism, or in its twin ceremony, circumcision, for 
neither of them had its origin in the form of religion where they are now 
observed with the most strict regularity and obligation, baptism for the 
Christian, circumcision for the- Jew; for both these observances were old 
before either of these religions were invented, and they were both copied, 
or more properly stolen, without leave, and without as much as giving 
credit to the source whence they were derived, but they have always 
been associated with .so much mystery, and administered with so much 
mock solemnity, and thus been made to appear to be so indispensably 
important, that it seems both proper and necessary to show up by ridi- 
cule its utter uselessness and absurdity, by describing in the first place 
the rite of circumcision, how and why it is thought essential to have it 
administered, and in the second place baptism, how and why it is 
administered. The rite of circumcision was originated by the patriarch 
Abraham, who circumcised himself when he was ninety-nine years old, 
pretending that God made him do it, as a reminder that he had made 
a covenant with God to be the founder and author of a new nation, who 
would, through his influence and instruction, worship, fear and adore 
him, to the exclusion of all other Gods, and he on his part promising to 
make of him a great nation, when as yet he had not so much as a wife 
by whom to produce a beginning of a new nation. This brand on the 
private part of the person of Abraham was intended only for the pur- 
pose of reminding him, who was of full age, when he received it, of his 
covenant; but it was afterwards, in the time of Moses, reduced to a more 
perfect system, and extended to all males, and its only object was not as 
anv reminder of any covenant with God, but only a mark by which 
every male Jew could be identified unmistakably, and was never applied 
to a Jew female infant, and the male infant must be mutilated by depriv- 
ing him of a small portion of an unnecessary appendage to his repro- 
ductive organ, in such' a precise surgical way as to make it impossible 
for any person but a Jewish priest to imitate, and although circumcision 



Circumcision and Baptism Described. 191 

had been common or at least known before Abraham's time, it had 
never been applied to the same organ, but was a mark or brand on the 
ear, that was always visible, but only was used when some particular 
stage of progress had been reached in the religious system to which 
this person, whether male or female, had attained, and the private mark 
put upon the Jew male infant on the eighth day after birth could only 
be seen when critically examined, and was never intended to be more 
than a mark of identification, except incidentally it might have a sanitary 
value. This mark was never put upon an adult male, so that a prose- 
lyte Jew, or one converted or adopted into Judaism in adult age, could 
never be a genuine Jew, but only a spurious imitation by profession 
alone, and had to be excluded from any participation in any of its more 
intricate mysteries, but might be the father of a genuine Jew male child, 
if married to a Jewess. So much for the nonsensical rite of circum- 
cision, which is as rigidly observed at the present, day as it ever was, 
and is only, as it was always,a senseless priestly humbug and imposition. 
Now let us see how much better baptism is. The Christian has 
stolen this rite from the ancient Egyptian, and they in turn stole it from 
the Hindoo or Brahmin, long ages before either Judaism or Christian- 
ity was invented. The Christian rite of baptism is, in its institution, a 
pretended continuation of the Jewish rite of circumcision; but it is not 
such, for it leaves no mark of identification on any part of the person, 
and it is administered or applied by the priest indiscriminately to all, 
whether male or female, and it is in all cases a mere application of water 
in some prescribed manner to the person, with more or less of ostenta- 
tion or publicity, as the variety of Christian priests who administers it 
requires. In the Roman Catholic church it is what it signifies, actual 
regeneration or new birth, and is for the most part publicly observed in 
the manner following: If the applicant is a new born infant, the persons 
who bring it wait at the door of the church for the priest, who, on being 
notified, comes there with his surplice and his purple robe, surrounded 
by his clerks and attendants. Every child whose parents apply for bap- 
tism must have a godfather, whether he has any other father or not, 
who has to give a solemn promise in the child's name to live and die 
in the true Catholic and apostolic faith, and the name is then given to 
the priest, who has asked for it. Then follows the exhortation to the 
sponsors, after which the priest, calling the child by name, asks, " What 
dost thou demand of the church?" The godfather answers, " Eternal 
life." The priest proceeds: " If thou art desirous of obtaining eternal 
life, keep God's commandments, "Thou shall love the Lord,! thy God, 
with all thy heart," etc.; after which the priest breathes three times in 
the child's face, saying, " Come out of this child, thou evil spirit, and 



192 The Skeptic's Defense. 

make room for the Holy Ghost." Then he makes the sign of the cross 
on the child's forehead and breast, saying, " Receive the sign of the 
cross on thy forehead and in thy heart," upon which, taking off his cap, 
he repeats a short prayer, and laying his hand gently on the child's head, 
he repeats a second prayer. Then he blesses some salt, and putting a 
little of it into the child's mouth, he says, " Receive the salt of wisdom." 

This performance is all had at the church door, after which the 
priest, with the godfathers and godmothers, come into the church, and 
advancing towards the font, repeat the apostle's creed and the Lord's 
prayer. Arriving at the font, the priest again exorcises the evil spirit, 
and taking a little of his own spittle with the thumb of his right hand, 
rubs it on the child's ears and nostrils, repeating, as he touches the 
right ear, the same word, " Ephphatha," (be thou opened), which our 
Saviour made use of when he cured the man born deaf and dumb. 
Lastly they pull off its swaddling clothes, or strip it below the should- 
ers, during which the priest prepares the oil. The sponsors then hold 
the child directly over the font, observing to turn it due east and west, 
w hereupon the priest askes the child whether he renounces the devil 
and all his works, and the godfather having answered in the affirmative, 
the priest annoints the child between the shoulders in the form of a 
cross, then taking some of the holy or consecrated water, he pours part 
of it thrice on the child's head, at each perfusion calling on one of the 
persons of the holy trinity. The priest then concludes the ceremony 
with an exhortation. The Roman church allows the midwife to bap- 
tize a child before the birth is completed, in case of danger, and the 
child thus baptized may be buried in consecrated ground. The Roman 
Catholic, also, in some extreme cases baptize the dead, by requiring 
another to be baptized for them. 

The foregoing is the manner in which all Roman Catholics have been 
consecrated in infancy, and their parents, if alive, and if not, their 
sponsors, always prevent any of these infants from being tainted or 
defiled by any form of heresy, until old enough to be taken charge of 
by those from whom they are to be instructed; and when sufficiently 
advanced in religious knowledge, to correctly answer a certain set of 
questions of a religious nature, they are confirmed, and made fit to 
receive the eucharist, or sacrament of the Lord's supper, and only in 
rare cases is it possible to obliterate and destroy all this first instruction, 
which is being constantly added to and strengthened while life lasts, 
and is it any wonder that Catholics are what they are? But still in 
spite of all these restraining influences, and others of a still stronger 
kind, such as fear of persecution, of excommunication, which is more 
dreadful than death, the Roman church lost a large body of its most 



Why the Author Joined the Church. 193 

important and best adherents, by refusing' to divorce an English kirfg 
who applied to the pope for a permit to marry a second wife in the life- 
time of the nrst wife, and the Episcopal or English church has ever since 
maintained a separate church organization, in many respects similar to 
the Roman Catholic, but not in all, and this also baptizes all its infants, 
with sponsors, and much of the same forms as the parent church, but 
rejects the pope's authority, and has the crowned head of England for its 
supreme ruler. 

The chief thing to be noticed in connection with the ceremony of bap- 
tism, in whatsoever way it is held and administered, is that all its priests 
instruct the people that it is by or through this ordinance the Holy 
Ghost is in some mysterious way communicated to the individual who 
receives it, when, without the outward observance of this rite, it would 
be withheld, no matter how pure and virtuous a life he might lead. 
Baptism is the door through which any soul must pass before it would 
be admitted into heaven, and if such were to be the result, and all those 
who had been baptized and had afterwards violated or failed to live up 
to their vows, were admitted there, more injustice would be done than if 
all were excluded; for it is a notorious fact that there are more Roman 
Catholics in the criminal classes of any country than of all others com- 
bined, and a higher grade of criminals can be found where the most 
rigid observances are required than any where else, for a cloak of religion 
is seldom looked under to find a criminal ; and so the worst escape sus- 
picion for the most part, but now and then one is discovered who stands 
high in church station. 

In the example of Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon, who all lived 
and died before any Holy Ghost had ever been heard of, and all of 
whom were God's favorites, Christians have an inciting example of 
crime and debauchery powerful in its effect, for the modern Bible 
believer can commit no crime so revolting and cruel but he can find a 
parallel in the lives of one of these Bible heroes to justify him. Then 
he has one of the standard doctrines of orthodoxy, which is, " Jesus 
paid it all,'' and " while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may 
return." Such doctrines are nothing less than a wholesale license to the 
evil disposed, or strongly tempted, to commit crime, and are one of the 
principal causes that fill the penitentiaries in all Christian lands with 
convicts, and populate the penal colony of Canada with Christian forg- 
ers and bank wreckers. 

It requires a right proportion of zeal and ignorance to make a good 
Christian fool, to my own certain knowledge, for from the age of 
twenty-two years to that of seventy-two, or fifty years, I was flattered as 
a pillar of the Christian church, and for this long time this flattery was 



194 The Skeptic's Defense. 

more charming than the music of a Jews harp, .but as I got cured of 
religious insanity I began to write this book. It now seems strange to 
me that my reason was so benumbed or so confined by the Bible and 
its creeds for the greater part of my long life ; and when I reflect on my 
early training, and with what influences my early life was surrounded, 
I cease to wonder, but notwithstanding all this I now feel, when past 
seventy-four years of age, like a bird uncaged or turned loose from 
confinement, and given its freedom. What mental pleasure I enjoy! 
What magnificent sights I see ! What depths of satisfaction I feel, now 
that I at last breathe the free air of nature, which is now my God, in the 
place of the God I so long worshipped and feared, but never loved, 
language is not adequate to fitly express. Sad is the reflection to me, 
and dark are the thoughts, that I for thirty years of mature manhood 
was so humbugged and duped by the priests, that I consented to join a 
Christian church and remain so long a member, imbibing and drinking 
in its false doctrines. I first erred in joining it, and further erred in 
continuing so long a member thereof. 

Skepticism is confined to religious subjects almost wholly, in fact 
a want of confidence in other than theologic subjects, is only described 
as opposition. Skepticism pertains as much to any pagan religion as to 
the Christian, Jewish or Mahometan form. Buddhism is an imposition 
that is only adapted to impose on the ignorant masses, and in all coun- 
tries and times the upper and lettered classes, who have become enlight- 
ened by intellectual culture, are all infected with a wide spread skepti- 
cism, causing a reluctance to accept any dogma that eludes the test of 
material analysis. All the missionary armies that enter the field are sub- 
divided into so many different and hostile sects, that nothing but confu- 
sion results in any foreign field. 

In 1 89 1, in the city of Tokio, the capital of Japan, the directory con- 
tained a list of thirty-one different churches, by as many different 
Christian sects, and these have the vast number of three hundred male 
and female missionaries, an ambitious lot of fanatics, each for him- 
self, representing that his is the true and only safe path to heaven, 
and the result is that the Japanese, when they see the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven in so many different hands, are so bewildered they are 
wholly incapable of coming to any decision, that they usually decide 
that there is so much uncertainty which is the true road to follow, they 
reject them all and decide they want no heaven at all. This scrambling 
to secure recruits to Christianity in every foreign land, defeats the whole 
scheme, while if only the ethical teachings of the Bible were offered 
them in a systematized body of precepts and prayers, they might, after 
much persuasion turn a listening if not a receptive attention, but as the 



Why Missionaries Can Live in China. 195 

missionary scheme is at present managed, it only produces a universal, 
wide spread skepticism of even their own system, as well as the one 
that is in this way offered them. It is mere nothing any missionary 
enterprise can accomplish in the securing recruits, in no matter what 
numbers, for these are all in the very lowest grade, and until you secure 
the official or ruling class, you have done nothing of any importance, 
and these are too intelligent to be caught with such chaff as these weak- 
brained missionaries throw before them, or in fact they never allow 
themselves to come in contact with them, and as no missionary is per- 
mitted to go to any place outside of treaty ports in any civilized foreign 
land, their influence is of small dimensions, and is mostly confined to 
foreigners from their own lands, who are permitted to reside at these 
ports for trade, or in the capacity of officials and servants. 

The enormous exaggerations in all reports of Christian missionary 
success in any foreign field is resorted to for the purpose of encouraging 
further donations of money, and stimulating the ambition of the stu- 
dents of theology, who have failed to be competent to fill vacant pulpits, 
where intelligence is in the pews, and are left on the hands of the eccle- 
siastical authorities, who are obliged to find them employment, and to 
get rid of them, send them into these wild, inhospitable regions, to sink 
or float, as they may be able. 

The Chinese have been compelled by England and France to admit 
their missionaries, by inserting an article in their treaties, made at the 
close of an unprovoked war to humiliate the vanquished, as such victors 
might consider adequate compensation for the expenses of such wars. 
At the close of the war, when England forced the Chinese to admit 
opium, the missionary article, eighth, was put into that treaty, by Lord 
Elgin, in reference to the rights of both Catholics and Protestants to 
teach their form of Christianity. " Persons teaching or professing it, 
therefore, shall alike, be entitled to the protection of the Chinese author- 
ities; nor shall any such, peacably pursuing their calling, and not offend- 
ing against the law T be persecuted or interfered with." The French 
treaty is still stronger, which was made in i860, two years later than the 
English treaty, after the capture and sacking of the summer palace of 
the Emperor, by both England and France, when in article 13 it was 
stipulated: " The Christian religion, having for its essential object, the 
leading of men to virtue, the members of all Christian communities shall 
enjoy entire security for their persons and property, and the free exercise 
of their religion/ 1 and to show the treachery and outragous barbarity of 
Christian virtue as they impudently proposed to inculcate among the 
Chinese after this treaty was signed, a French missionary, who acted 
as interpreter, introduced, while it was being copied, this clause into the 



196 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Chinese copy, which was by the Chinese not suspected, so was entirely 
overlooked. " It is in addition permitted to French missionaries to rent 
and purchase land in all the provinces, and to erect buildings thereon at 
pleasure." This unjustifiable duplicity has produced the result it might 
have been expected to and that was to make all Christian missionaries 
so odious to the authorities that they are disposed to wink at the whole- 
sale destruction of all the various forms of missionaries and their whole 
establishments, by any ignorant mob, and this mob is made furious by 
various rumors of outrages, perhaps without much reason, but are suf- 
cient to cause an immense destruction of both life and property, and 
may, in the end involve Christian nations in, a sanguinary war such as 
religious frenzy has always produced. It is proper to inquire " where 
does the Christian missionary derive any authority to force his unwel- 
come presence among nations remote from his own ? " It is found in 
the last two verses of the gospel by Matthew, which in the revised ver- 
sion is, " Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father, and; of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you, and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world." 

The rascally revisers dare not endorse what the former version made 
Mark say about this, so they only endorsed the last chapter of Mark 
as far as the 9th verse. This whole quotation is a recent invention, for 
it is a flat contradiction to the teaching of this same person in the 10th 
chapter of Matthew, and in the 9th and 10th of Luke. These two direc- 
tions were asserted to have been made by Jesus when he was human and 
could talk, but these directions only included Jews, and these who were 
sent out were forbidden to even enter into any city of the Gentiles, or to 
heal any of their sick. This last command was made, if at all, after 
the resurrection, and is wholly untrue, and inconsistent, if you are going 
to insist on inspiration, and if not ; these crusades are not only unwar- 
ranted, but are an unspeakable outrage. Just for a moment look at the 
situation. A Christian of any kind is nothing but a half crazy fanatic, 
and when he develops into a missionary, under the impulse and direction 
of the theologian, and has added this sense of duty to his awakened sen- 
sibility, he becomes entirely demented with dwelling on this one idea to 
the exclusion of all common sense, and therefore it is not a question to 
him, or the ones behind him, whether his labors and sacrifices are to be 
a gain or loss to civilization, for he is a subject of a higher power than 
any statesman or diplomatist of this world. All he has to do to refute 
all comers is to refer them to this one verse of scripture which in his 
judgment cuts the ground away from all criticism and renders argument 



The Outrage of Christian Missions. 197 

superfluous. Obedience to this supreme command is the final and only 
test to which he will submit his action. It is useless to point out to him 
that the selection of a single passage from the closing word of the 
founder of one faith as the sanction of a movement against all other 
faiths, is at best only a dangerous experiment. Equally useless is it to 
remind him that Christ, himself, when sending his twelve disciples 
among only their own nation, to the exclusion of all other individuals, 
even was smart enough to anticipate poor success, and gave directions 
in case any hesitation or reluctance should develope to immediately 
abandon any further effort, and to make it appear more ridiculous, he 
directed them to leave what dust might be on their feet behind them. 
Thev were strictly prohibited from causing any trouble to result in 
international or other strife, but the modern missionary having the treaty 
of his government behind him, to act as a protection to his person, 
ignores such a slight consequence as that his government should 
become involved in international dispute, or even war, for these are only 
a feather's weight in the scale compared with the great final issue at 
stake^ which his vivid imagination pictures to him as the spiritual regen- 
eration of not only individuals, but a vast country containing a mighty 
population, steeped in ignorance, heathenism and sin. 

Morrison, the first Protestant, went to China in 1807, and in 1890 
there were 1,300. The extermination of these seems to have been fully 
decided on, by late movements, let the result to the government of the 
country, be as it may, for it cannot possibly be worse than a continuation 
and indefinite expansion of this unwelcome element of discord among 
those, who, without this foreign element of discord were contented and 
happy. This missionary question, like all others, has two or more sides, 
those who go to China, and other such civilized lands, adopt an attitude 
of implacable hostility to all native religions and ethics, ignoring alike 
their virtuous aspects and influences, the all powerful hold which these 
have acquired upon the national character by antiquity, more especially 
in their ancestor worship, which is so strong among the Chinese that it 
amounts to superstitious reverence. All this and others like this, is 
not only ignored, but is treated with contempt. The Chinaman is 
entirely content with his own religion, and asks only to be let alone, 
but this missionary propaganda, instead of letting him alone, attacks 
all he holds most dear, Confucius, long before any Christ was even 
thought of, taught him the whole duty of man to the family and the 
state. 

The missionary upsets all this social order, and causes the same 
result in families who apostatize from their former religion, as Christ 
directed in so many words in Matthew 10, 35: "1 am come to set a 



198 The Skeptic's Defense. 

man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her 
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." What a 
recommendation that is to a Chinaman, and that always operates in that 
way. You must not doubt a Christian priest, better lose all family ties 
than lose your immortal soul, is the alternative, you must choose one or 
the other, for you cannot have both. What sort of a reception do you 
think any Pagan or Mahometan priest would have among orthodox 
Christians, who should commence their crusade by denouncing the 
Bible and the apostles creed? This is a parallel to what all missionaries 
are doing, if there is a Bible or sacred ibook, and if there is none they 
make one. Morrison actually made a Chinese Bible in 1823, or what is 
equivalent, translated alone the Christian. Bible into Chinese. 

What a monstrosity that was for one man alone to do such a mighty 
work, when it took seventy-two translators, each one of which was a 
smarter man than Morrison, to translate the Hebrew scriptures into 
the Greek, and that work was so: imperfectly done that many revisions 
have since been made, and it is still full of contradiction and error. 
When the Jesuits found out the Chinese language had no word to con- 
vey the idea of God, they gave them words signifying Lord of heaven. 
The American translator coined a word that signified True Spirit, and 
then the English theologian came along and made his word that signi- 
fied Supreme Lord, and that is as near the Chinese conception of God 
as it is possible to get, and when you extend this process to the whole 
system, nothing but utter confusion is possible. This whole scheme of 
translation and revision of sacred books, so-called, is only an organized 
system of fraud, robbery and imposition, whoever does it or for whom it 
is done, and the original writing is the greatest fraud of all. Such is 
the condition that ignorance and poverty reduces the human animal, 
where ever found a prey to superstition, imposition, robbery, and injus- 
tice of every description, and such is the condition the priest is endeav- 
oring to make perpetual by withholding and preventing his elevation, 
by instructing him- and enlightening his intellect. Nothing but science 
in its various departments simplified and put before the adult mind, that 
has been left unimpressed with any form and degree of religious instruc- 
tion, can stimulate and cultivate the desire to learn, and no learning, 
but such as some form of science can impart is of any value. If all 
missionaries were teachers of science instead of religion, no possible 
harm could be done to any mortal. There never was a scientist who 
was either superstitious or fanatical, and there never was a published 
scientific work that was untrue for proof is to be found in every state- 
ment when the investigation required is had to reach a demonstration, 
but no scientist ever adopted the role of missionary, to instruct the 



Why Science is Better than Religion. 199 

benighted, in foreign lands, and until they do so missionary instruction 
has nothing but a pernicious effect, but none of these who go to teach 
religion have any perception, or at best only a faint perception of any 
learning, but what they derive from the Bible, and that has no tendency 
alone to elevate or civilize barbarians, and would not have if they could 
comprehend it, for it is never taught in a rudimentary form, for it is 
impossible to reduce it from mystery to simplicity. 

On the contrary, science must always begin with the rudiments, and 
at the opposite, and when fully developed never reaches mystery, but 
instead demonstration or proof, and if introduced into any civilized land 
with as much energy and determination as the worthless schemes of the 
soul's salvation are, would attract and instruct the highest and best 
who now entirely neglect any interest except to oppose any missionary 
movement. Such sciences as mathematics and astronomy had their 
origin in pagan lands, and to some extent navigation was able to invent 
the mariner's compass, but could not apply it for want of ability to con- 
struct ships. Printing with movable types was known to the Chinese 
2.000 years ago, but they still print as they did at first, for want of suit- 
able instruction, but a long list of sciences are still unknown, and would 
be gladly welcomed by the learned among the oriental nations, who onlv 
despise all the missionaries gabble about to such as they can persuade 
or hire to listen to them, and not only so, but we will extend this branch 
of learning to our own country and imagine what a vast increase of 
general intelligence would immediately be realized if instead of the 
unintelligible harangues the audiences are compelled to listen to from 
Sabbath to Sabbath, in our most popular churches, these audiences were 
supplied with competent instructors in science instead of theology. Far 
less money would be required for this change, and far more benefit 
would result. The strict enforcement of the Sunday laws would not be 
required for the saloons would remain closed for want of customers, 
the summer resorts would languish for the same reason. Let not the 
preachers of the gospel lay the flattering unction to their souls, that the 
large audiences that are sometimes there on special occasions, are there 
to hear the music of his voice, which is so sweet to himself, but rather 
are there to hear the expert music which is the main attraction to at 
least half of every audience, who find in that an elevating and refining 
influence. Experience has conclusively demonstrated that expensive 
music is a good investment as an accessory to poor preaching, and not- 
withstanding these strangers who are so cordially invited and welcomed 
on the printed programme, are always insulted by having the collection 
plate put under his nose, with organ accompaniment, at every service, 
an equivalent is received by some cultivated music rendered by a fine 



200 The Skeptic's Defense. 

organ and expert vocalists that is at least an imaginary benefit on the 
whole. 

Suppose an admission ticket was required before any person could 
enter a church, as is the case with the theater or a celebrated scientist 
lecture, how many would be there. On the other hand, suppose the thea- 
ter or lecture was free, what building could hold the audience. On this 
account the managers in both cases are obliged to make the one free and 
the other costly, and the result is the one that is the most costly, is the 
best attended by the best people, and the rabble go to the church because 
it is free and of no value to offset even that trouble, and the preacher, 
like his counterpart, the missionary, is haranguing an audience not 
capable of comprehending what he is driving at, in his address, but 
fully comprehend what the collection plate is intended for. 

When Christianity follows commerce into any barbarous country, 
it carries with it so many Christian vices, that any partial, imaginary 
benefit, is neutralized. No one in these lands has ever asked any mis- 
sionary to come to them, and where they have, unasked, thrust their 
unwelcome presence, they have taught them how to play cards, so as to 
cheat the unskilled novice. Prize fighting is another Christian land 
accomplishment, and whether by dueling with any deadly weapons, or 
by such weapons and brute force as nature has provided, is unknown 
in any country where Christianity and the Bible has never been intro- 
duced. The Gladiators of Rome and Greece fought, as condemned 
criminals, for victory, which secured to the victor, pardon and contin- 
ued life,. but never for money, or to be the champion of the country for 
brute force and physical endurance. Such motives as these are Christ- 
ian in their introduction and application, but the motive of the Gladiator, 
and the inspiration that caused him to put forth his best efforts, was to 
secure liberty and restoration to his home and family, and incidentally 
receive the applause of the spectators, and while this practice, in some of 
its aspects, was revolting to the instincts of cultivated society, as it 
existed when this system of legal punishment for crime was adopted, it 
v/as no more so than public execution of criminals was then, or now is, 
and is only referred to, to show that no superiority is found in Christian 
civilization, and also to show that there are glaring blemishes in all 
forms of civilization, equal with humanity in a savage state in some 
respects. It is a common practice for Christian priests to boast of the 
influence of the Bible to elevate and refine the human race, in one 
special direction, for instance, the advancement of musical culture. 
Music, like sculpture, is an art, and these, with painting, are, if you 
please to so call them, fine arts, and not a special discovery, but more in 
the nature of a development, and has no more reference to religion of 



Why Pretended Conversion is of No Value. 201 

any kind than architecture has, and no finer specimens of shrines or 
temples, or of other artistic decorations and sculpture, can be found on 
earth, in any period of human society, than were built and had perished 
ages before Christianity existed, and at this very time the Hindoos can 
excel in splendor and cost, in their ordinary shrines and public edifices, 
any thing any Christian nation has ever produced, or are likely to ever 
produce. Nothing is more common, or more unutterably vile and mis- 
leading, than is the practice of the orthodox priest to compare the out- 
ward conduct of their converts, or those who pretend to have experi- 
enced the new birth, as the result of this evangelistic crusade before and 
after conversion, and claim credit for being the 1 cause of such change, 
and brag in their annual reports how many they have recovered to keep 
the number equal, at least, to the losses by death or apostacy. This out- 
ward change from profanity and general cussedness is nearly all by fear 
alone, operating on a depraved intellect, made so by debauchery, and 
when this fear subsides, a return to former habits is nearly universal, so 
that a change produced by such means is of no value. On the other 
hand, when a man of irreproachable, outward conduct, pretends to have 
discovered his lost condition, and accepts the terms on which salvation 
is offered, no change of conduct is perceptible, but more caution is 
used if this person is naturally a cheat and a rogue, and such caution 
overcomes any suspicion of dishonesty, for before he was irreproach- 
able and now in consequence of his professed change he is not. 

On account of the universally admitted proposition, that everv grade 
of the human family has + he capacity to use a faculty or endowment 
which he calls the reasoning faculty, he has assumed and endeavored to 
propagate and maintain the assumption, that he alone of all the animals 
have this gift or endowment,fbr it is to his satisfaction or sufficiently dem- 
onstrated that he is superior in that respect to all other living organisms, 
and not only is that the case, but he is also able to make progress or 
advancement in knowledge of various kinds within his capacity, and 
also anticipate and provide for future wants and emergencies, and sur- 
round himself with safeguards for his protection, and luxuries, for his 
comfort. The naturalist is able to show that this assumption is in a 
great measure unfounded, for many animals besides man, in proportion 
to their needs, have what to them is equivalent to the reason in man, 
and many grades of men, and in fact in most grades of men, some indi- 
viduals are found whose instincts are beneath many of the best speci- 
mens of some orders of brutes; so that this claim of superiority is in 
some respects unfounded. It is requisite and important in the examina- 
tion of this subject to have at least some acquaintance, and the more 
intimate and complete the better, with, the comparatively new embryo 



202 The Skeptic's Defense. 

science of evolution, or development, which has in the short time of 
twenty-five years only, which has elapsed since the first publication of 
the discoveries of Darwin and others of the origin of species, has now 
reached the stage of probability so as to cause it to be adopted by the 
greater part of the various branches of scientists, and the more extensive 
and thorough this examination is, the more profound the conviction 
becomes that all former theological teachings relating to the human 
soul, its supreme value or worth, and its final destiny, have been, and 
still are, without any substantial foundation, and that this universal belief 
in the existence of the human soul was like all other of the theological 
teachings, a mere abstraction or assumption entirely destitute of proof 
or even probability, and when the further preposterous assumption that 
this soul was immortal or undying was added to the others, it caused 
the inquiry — why a future existence was necessary, and hence came the 
false assumption of an eternity at the close of time, to each one, in which 
the adjustment of the inequalities of rewards and punishments were to 
be ascertained and adjusted, and this in turn led to the establishment of 
the priestly office and the various preparatory performances of rites 
instituted by the church, as a prescription to cure the malady of sin, and 
erase the stain, and restore the lost purity, so as to fit it for the society of 
the pure angels who had never sinned, and the redeemer, who had 
redeemed them. 

Ever since the human animal became sufficiently developed from the 
lower form of animal, from which he by gradual development, through 
a long series of ages, finally emerged, to comprehend that he was a 
thinking being, and endowed with some degree of the perceptive faculty 
and had reflective capacity, he has been ^inquiring from whence and 
whom he derived 'these endowments; and as he has now advanced after 
a long succession of ages so far beyond what he was at first, and one 
after another hitherto undiscovered faculty has been added to the best 
specimens of the race in any given period, till the present comparatively 
perfect condition of mental ability has been reached, and still his anxious 
inquiry is no nearer a satisfactory answer than it was at first, it seems 
proper to inquire into the reason of failure of past efforts, and also 
whether any future efforts in this direction give any better promise of 
satisfactory results. 

That anatomical portion of the human organism which the ignor- 
ant boobies who wrote the Bible, whoever they were, have in that docu- 
ment named the heart, when they should have named it the brain, for 
there is no more reason to suppose that the heart is the seat of mental 
ability than that the liver is, or the stomach, but in all the animals the 
brain is the only seat of intelligence, and the faculty with which they 



The Origin of Soul in Man Explained. 203 

are furnished is called instinct, and is the same in kind as the human 
animal has, only differing in degree, on account of the amount of the 
brain, in proportion to the bulk of the human brain bears to the whole 
structure, and also the quality or capacity of the brain of the human 
animal is greater in proportion, on account of the food, which is the 
source from which all intelligence is derived. The faculty in all grades 
of animals below the human, which causes all their various observed 
peculiarities, is named instinct in the human animal, is named soul in 
religious use, but in all other uses of secular kinds is called mind, and 
is merely the expansion of the natural instinct common to all animals, 
to a greater or less extent, as the proportion of the brain in quantity or 
quality bears to the whole structure, and also in proportion as the out- 
ward surroundings are favorable or otherwise to the development of 
the several kinds of instinct, adapted to such beings or order of beings, 
and as the human animal has been situated so as to produce in him the 
necessity for a more full development of the intellectual faculties, that 
make him able to rise above those that in some measure approach him, 
but yet are still below him in mental capacity, so this discovered superi- 
ority has caused him to assume the false and unwarranted belief that 
this faculty, which is falsely named soul, is a direct gift or endowment 
of the supernatural God, that another false assumption has made it 
appear to him a living reality. 

All this false system, or way of reasoning, has been the chief 
cause of all the solicitude and anxiety about the immortal nature of this 
soul, and its condition in a future life, which another false assumption 
has invented, to endeavor to give stability to still another outrageously 
false assumption called immortality, or never dying, as the word means. 
These several assumptions are all based on one greater than alkthe rest, 
which is that this God given soul, this never dying soul, is given to 
man, but withheld from every other animal, or is a portion of the divine 
nature, a direct emanation of all the qualities that distinguish the most 
highly gifted specimens of the human from all other animals, and is 
therefore the most valuable of all the attainments hitherto possessed, 
and as the giver of this soul is immortal, therefore the soul itself, being 
a component of the God who gave it to its possessor, returns, when 
death takes the body away from the soul, to the source from whence it 
was at first derived. This would be a plausible theory (for it is not 
claimed by its inventors to be anything better than theory or possibility 
by those who invented these absurd theories), provided it could be 
shown that the human soul had any other origin than the same faculty 
which in all other animals but the human is called instinct, but observa- 
tion and reflection reach the conclusion that matter alone makes the 



204 The Skeptic's Defense. 

entire composition of this whole universe, and that mind is simply the 
offspring or product of matter, and like other offspring is upheld and 
sustained by matter, and finds its home or habitation in some material 
form as long as that form exists, and when the existence of the abode 
of mind terminates, the mind itself is immediately and forever dead, but 
matter is eternal in some of its transformations, self originated and self 
propagated, and is controlled and governed by laws that act in spite of 
any influence, like gravitation, spontaneously and unceasingly produc- 
ing results that are unchangeable and immutable, needing no creator or 
preserver, and requiring unquestioned and immediate obedience to cer- 
tain fixed laws or principles, in all living objects, and punishing, without 
any distinction, every violation of these laws, whether by design or 
through ignorance, without respect to any creed or station, or without 
so much as offering any mitigation on account of any excuse, or for 
ever so sincere repentance. The conclusion that matter and mind make 
up the whole sum of what nature is composed, and that matter is 
eternal, and that it preceded mind, which by some unperceived and so 
far unknown process originated mind, and sustained and developed it 
since in its various manifestations, throughout all forms of animal life, 
and causes all animal life to propagate itself, in obedience to physical 
and natural law, and when matter changes its form at that stage in its 
assimilation, which as it relates to animal life we call death, there is then 
a separation, and whether the mind dies for want of the sustaining power 
from which it derived its existence, and by which it has hitherto been 
kept alive, or what becomes of it, no one ever has known, or ever will 
know, and no one ought ever to care, and so save themselves a vast 
amount of worry and useless anxiety, which has produced more suicides 
and insanity than all other causes combined. 

Analogy is a fair theory on which to found an inference, and as all 
animal life is so very feeble at its commencement as to make it doubtful 
if it can be prolonged beyond a brief period, and as the mind at the 
beginning of, its manifestation is still more feeble than the body, and 
is only able to increase as the body or material part, of its organization 
is able by receiving and assimilating nourishing food to increase in size 
and strength, and also the further fact that the mind is not developed to 
its full capacity till the body reaches maturity, and then declines in the 
same ratio as does the body, till at the death of the body the mind or 
soul is also dead ought to forever put the whole inquiry at rest, 
and it would have been so disposed of if the humbug and night- 
mare called religion had never been invented for the human animal 
is the only variety of living thing that ever inquires about its 
destiny beyond the present life, and none of the human race ever attain 



What Becomes oe the Soul at Death. 205 

that state of ability till they are instructed by .some person, who at some 
stage of a diseased mind, called insanity, permitted some prominent 
individual in the distant past to start what has since developed into 
religious belief, and has in long past ages so strengthened itself by 
means of subsequent impostors adding one imposition after another, 
till at last some form of religious belief became almost universal ; or in 
other words some individuals in nearly all races and tribes of men 
believe, or pretend to believe, and strive to inculcate that belief among 
their associates, that the destiny of the human soul is of such infinite 
importance, that in order to redeem the lost souls of mankind, the son 
of God must assume human nature, and submit to all the penalty that 
the human race had incurred by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, 
who, it is asserted, transmitted their fallen nature to their posterity, and 
to suffer death by the extreme torture of crucifixion, at the hands of his 
own nation, so that the souls of men might be saved, who otherwise 
must be eternally lost. 

The elaboration, and the elucidation of this false assumption, has 
employed the combined efforts of the Christian world for nearly nineteen 
hundred years, without any perceptible impression having been made, 
that ought to encourage any of the propagators of this imposition, to 
hope for any more satisfactory results in the future. The conclusion may 
as well be stated without any further hesitation, that the human soul, if 
you please to give it that name, has no more value pro rata than the 
same faculty in any other of the animal creation, for both derive their 
existence from the same source, are provided with the same kind of a 
dwelling place — the brain, are kept alive by the same process — the food 
consumed and assimilated, dies or is separated from its habitation when 
the animal's body dies, and in both cases forever remains extinct as far 
as our information has yet gone, or ever can go, except by faith, which 
is the most unreal of all the operations of the mind; and no amount of 
assumption of pretended revelation, of inspiration, of desire, of faith, or 
any or all of these influences combined, can give the least reliable infor- 
mation as to the destiny of any mortal, beyond this fleeting, short 
period, embraced in the longest life, and the effort to get any such infor- 
mation may better be abandoned. 

The infinite variety observed among intelligent beings is caused by 
the circumstances by which each individual is surrounded, and from 
which no escape is possible. This applies to nations, as well as indi- 
viduals, causing a variety of development of the faculties of mental 
endowment possessed by each one, and influenced by a variety of 
causes, such as different food, different climate, different social associa- 
tions, favorable or otherwise, producing different results in each case, 



306 The Skeptic's Defense. 

making in the aggregate a different form of civilization, in nearly every 
instance adapted to the different people composing the race, and under 
which they prosper, and with which they are satisfied, as long as they 
continue to be unmolested by those who claim to be able to give them 
what appears to these latter a better form of civilized life, and chiefly to 
supply them with religious information as they pretend to suppose to be 
far superior to any yet invented,in which is revealed that this sort without 
this new invention must inevitably be lost, and of course making the 
religion of these people, under which they have lived and prospered, 
and with which they have been satisfied, appear worse than useless, a 
positive damage. In order for any theory as to the necessity of any 
efforts being put forth in connection with the salvation of the human 
soul in a future life, to have, or be entitled to have, any claim to the 
notice of any religious societies, who pretend so much solicitude for the 
eternal welfare of all human beings, it must be shown in the first place 
that there is a life beyond the present life, which has never been shown 
so far in human experience, and it is safe to predict it never will be made 
any clearer than it now is; and in the second place it must be shown 
that, conceding the human animal has a soul that it is of any value, more 
than what pertains to the present life, or in other words has any exist- 
ence separated from its human habitation, in which it has existed dur- 
ing the life of such human 'body. Neither of these propositions has 
anything but assumption to stand upon, and can never have anything 
better, if you reject what pretends to be revelation, which ought to be 
universally and unhesitatingly rejected, but unfortunately is not, and 
this deplorable state of the case causes all the anxiety and worry about 
a subject on which no amount of anxiety is able to do more than to 
generate a small amount of weak faith in some superstitious, unbal- 
anced individuals, who in the remote past have had control over intel- 
lects still less able to understand this subject, and who in consequence 
have accepted these false teachings, having neither the desire or the abil- 
ity to think or act for themselves. The vast majority of the human race 
in all ages of time and in all countries, under all religions, and, under 
all forms of civilization, are so near destitute of enough mental ability 
to be entitled to rank among those who have, or seem to have, enough 
of the reasoning faculty to be worthy to receive so important a name as 
soul, that the small souls they seem to have are scarcely worth saving, 
much less when the cost of such salvation is computed, but only now 
and then one in any age or country has any soul that is perceptible, and 
these need no savior. 

It is very seldom that any author of any reformatory work, or even 
of poetry, secures even notoriety, to say nothing about fame, in his own 



Why Reformers Are Unpopular. 207 

lifetime, or in that of his immediate successors. Shakespeare, Milton, 
Byron, and hosts of others in that line, and Luther, Calvin and their 
associates in the line of reformers, were only persecuted while they lived, 
and when time enough had intervened to cause their many evil habits 
and passions to be forgotten, which are always concealed both by them- 
selves and their admirers in their life time, then future generations, hav- 
ing access to only one side of their character, and that the most favor- 
able side, award a degree of merit or even fame proportioned to what 
results these individuals have secured, either salutary to mankind in 
general, or only a small portion. When reformers contemplate the 
gross superstition of the masses of the people, and which is shared in 
no small degree by cultivated people, they may be excused from being 
too sanguine, for to triumph over the superstition of ages, which is all 
the reason any people ever had for accepting any form of religion, and, 
so to speak, give a new education to one's people, and a new life, is a 
work demanding not only incredible toil, but also exposes those who 
undertake this work to contempt, to ridicule, and not seldom to perse- 
cution and complete isolation, and for all of this only posterity will 
gather the fruits, and it is very rare that any such a person secures a 
place in history, for success is only to be expected by fearless men, who 
are willing to sacrifice their own present comfort to benefit the race, 
and to abolish forever those sombre, superstitious practices of that 
hideous bigotry which has always, in past times, in consequence of 
being kept alive, and stimulated into active exercise by the continual, 
persistent efforts of the priesthood, stained with blood the piety of the 
faithful, through an unmeaning, damnable faith in mere sorcery. 

Those who are thus despised and reviled expect, as the result of 
their sacrifices and unappreciated labors, to see a generation of men 
grow up in the place of the present generations, whose characters will 
not be degraded, as these have been for many centuries, by a false, fatal 
education, when instead of the phenomena of nature being explained by 
miracles and supernatural humbug, they will be explained by scientific 
demonstration, and the senseless hatred now entertained by reason of a 
faith imperceptibly different from another, who worships at a different 
shrine, will give place to fraternity, and a generation of men grow up 
strangers to fanaticism and corruption, and possessed by a passion for 
liberty, and the country and age whose glory they will be. The priest- 
hood in every Catholic country in Europe, in South America,, Central 
America and Mexico, have always and do now push education aside, 
and in its place substitute ignorance and barbarism, till they have 
almost extinguished both the desire and ability to think, only to blindly 
obey. Where would the progress of any nation be to-day if none but 



208 The Skeptic's Defense. 

priestly, or, if you please, Bible influence had been allowed to assert 
itself? And this allowance has only been secured by persistent force, 
by skeptics, to thwart in some degree the schemes of priestly influence, 
for it is an undeniable fact that all the great materialistic and social 
improvements of this present advanced civilization have been accom- 
plished outside of the Bible and Christianity. 

In what has preceded, next to nothing has been written about evolu- 
tion, as it has come to be defined and applied to human origin and 
development. It is highly probable that if no attempt had been made 
by any ancient writer to explain the various systems of the division of 
matter into observed conditions, no search for such explanation would 
now be made, for it is not a material question, and its solution would 
result in no benefit, but inasmuch as some ancient writers in a long past 
age, nobody knows how long, or who the writers were, have attempted 
an explanation by assumption, which is only another name for guess 
work, and this assumption is so far beyond the bounds of possibility, or 
even probability, it has stimulated some ambitious scientists of the pres- 
ent age to begin and prosecute some inquiry into scientific demonstra- 
tion, so that in future developments of future scientists, having such 
discoveries as have already been made as a basis to found the future 
search upon, some approach more sure than assumption may finally be 
reached. Enough is already positively known and demonstrated to 
nullify and destroy the Bible theory of the origin of all created things, 
as there pretended to have been to the writer thereof revealed, by some 
divine supernatural being, called God, notwithstanding the Christian 
world has had some five or six thousand years undisputed possession 
of all the human intellect, to propagate and cultivate universal adoption 
and belief of this nonsensical allegorical definition of the origin of both 
mind and matter, no sane person, except a religious fanatic, is stupid 
enough, when his intellect has become mature, to even seriously try to 
believe any more what his reason considers impossible, however much 
it is reinforced by the priest, the Sunday-school instruction, or parental 
influence, but for the sake of policy may refrain from expressing openly 
absolute uncompromising unbelief, although entertained. 

Nothing more positive than probability has yet been developed by 
this new theory or speculation called evolution, for it is yet in the stage 
of infancy, or mere inquiry. All sciences have been at first theoretical, 
or embryotic, and have advanced by persistent effort to the final 
stage of demonstration, and no longer need defence, for they rest on 
proof. While no science is complete, in the sense that no more knowl- 
edge concerning it is possible, a few are so far known that, the human 
development does not yet require any further light upon these; others 



Why All Animals Are Afraid to Die. 209 

are in all stages, from the embryotic to the approximately complete. 
When did human society get the positive authority to define what man 
might not do, or might do, without offending against man's God? This 
has all resulted by a supercilious conspiracy of some few intellectually 
advanced specimens, who have assumed for themselves a special, divine 
creation, in order that they might selfishly protect their own interests, 
while giving over to destruction the dumb progenitors of all themselves 
could ever expect to be. Is it not, therefore, pertinent to inquire as to 
the truth of anything connected with the human race as a whole, and is 
not the whole system of moral destination a mere fiction? Perhaps it 
may be conceded it is well enough adapted for those who, by sufficient 
persistence, can win fortune and glory in it, but the very idiocy of needless 
crownless misery for those constituting the great majority of mankind, 
who are obliged to endure poverty, obscurity and presecution, for a 
vain hope of something exceptional to all other animate creation after 
death! What a worthless, criminal conspiracy is in such a contempt- 
ible process revealed, dreadful enough to excite the most fearful conse- 
quences of retaliation, when mankind can be helped by the future teach- 
ings of science to discover its unparalleled enormity. 

Education, by reason of the opposition of the priest, has not yet 
extended to the masses of men, so that they know the permanence and 
extent of the foundations they have go't to knock away, before the edi- 
fice can fall. The moral and spiritual conceptions of the masses of men 
are not much beyond some of the best instructed among the lower 
animals, and all animals are prevented by fear from attacking men; 
and men are restrained in the same way from destroying each other, 
but this fear gives place to courage when men discover a weak, defence- 
less foe, and all men and animals fight hard against the supposed 
agony preceding death, and men are taught to be moral because their 
surest average safety is thereby secured, and the priest tells his dupes 
they want some special system which he names spiritual thought, or 
expectation, so that they can cope, or fancy they can, with normal life's 
ineradicable terror of death, and our fancied superiority in the possession 
of a soul over the lower animals, whose speech is inarticulate to us, 
gives men a fancied dignity. Evolution, when carried to its ultimate, 
will clear away all this rubbish of divine, special care, and protection, as 
well as origin of man, and in its infancy will destroy man's God, his 
savior, and his immortal soul, when fully comprehended; and why 
should not the priest sneer and oppose its progress, for progressive 
science and stationary religion must of necessity be hostile to each 
other; both are not true. 

Mankind, in its progress of development into successive stages of 



210 The Skeptic's Defense. 

intellectual improvement, are obliged to also develop language, by the 
addition from time to time of new words, to furnish a name by which to 
describe the new discovery or invention ; hence such words as optimism 
and pessimism have been recently added, to define opposite operations 
of the modern human mind, by which people are swayed or influenced, 
as either hope or fear obtains, for the time being, the ascendancy, so 
that fear or apprehension of disaster, both present, or near, or future, or 
distant, is optimism, and its opposite, or hope, causing the individual 
for the time being to look on the bright side of present or future events, 
is pessimism. Both of these are mere visionary or transient impres- 
sions; caused chiefly by some imperfect physical condition of the indi- 
vidual at that time, and is possible of transmission to others, who are 
brought within or under the influence of such as are employed to act as 
teachers of society, to a limited extent, but never more than partial, so 
that for instance he who makes a life of uninterrupted happiness his 
principal aim, is on the wrong tack, because experience will demon- 
strate very soon that human life is made up of both pleasure and pain 
in such equal proportions as to give rise to such a question as " Is Life 
on the whole worth living?" Consequently you are not able to decide 
until one or the other, after much experience, predominates, and when 
such a decision assumes a negative form, the individual proceeds to ter- 
minate his life by suicide, and when the affirmative decision is reached, 
he seeks to both increase and prolong his pleasures. If pleasure and 
pain are on the whole unfairly or unequally distributed, it is more than 
probable that this is a fault which human agency can cure, if not wholly, 
still to a degree satisfactory enough to prevent suicide. Therefore if 
pessimism can teach the world that the, highest reward of virtue is self 
respect, instead of a reward in a future life, it does well. It always does 
well if it points out the barriers to happiness in this life, and that these 
can nearly all be overcome by the adoption of such wise methods as it 
. can point out, and the conclusion can ^hus be reached that the sum of 
existence is on the whole a good thing. 

Apprehension of evil is to be expected when any radical change is 
proposed, or made, in long established customs. That is the common 
way that opposition to such change manifests itself. Such is now the 
priest's attitude, and that of his dupes, who have yielded to his influence, 
in respect to the proposed change about the compulsory observance of 
a day the Christian priest has invented, and named the Sabbath day. 
What, say they, will become of society, when this guidance and salutary 
restraint is removed? Such a possibility raises terrible forebodings in 
the minds of these stupid fanatics. Such was the anxiety of these 
priestly apologists of American slavery, about the horrors that were to 
be expected if by any process slavery was to be abolished, which, now 



Why a Correct Translation is Impossible. 211 

that it is done more than thirty years ago, nothing but benefit to all con- 
cerned has resulted, or will ever result. 

Few people among even cultivated minds, and more among the 
uncultivated, are aware of the impossibility of translating any book, or 
writing of any author, from one language into another correctly, or even 
approximately correct, for it is very difficult for any author to clearly 
express his own thoughts so that a reader may find nothing obscure. 
A translator is obliged to precisely know the complete meaning or the 
text, in the language in which it is first written, and in order to become 
penetrated with the sense of its author, he must be able to think his 
thoughts in his own language, and correctly reproduce them in the one 
he is writing for readers of the translation. This process is simply 
impossible, except the translator is an expert in both languages, and 
very rarely is this the' case; therefore, caution is required, especially in 
so important a case as the correct translation of a Bible, lest a mistake 
may have been made fatal to the reliability of any translation. This fact 
furnishes a reason why suspicion is justifiable, and makes a demand for 
proof in order. Both the apochryphal testaments, old and new, are 
discarded by Protestants and accepted by Catholics, and both of these 
factions are at such extreme confidence of the certainty of their position 
that no compromise is possible, and both deny the other the right to 
bear the Christian name. Skeptics say that they are both wrong, mere 
wild lunatics scrambling for precedence and for the money there is in it, 
without the slightest interest except to strengthen and continue this vile 
imposition. 

To-day the student of history everywhere, in all lands, now know 
that the Jewish scriptures are compiled from the Hindoo and Egyptian 
mythology, and these inspired thieves who wrote these scriptures 
openly boast of their grand larceny of these literary jewels, and of their 
theologic ability to ply all the black arts for God's glory, and to steal all 
the cheap literary trinkets that come within their reach if they seem to 
be of enough importance to be worth the trouble to take. How so 
many absurd religious beliefs have originated we shall never know pre- 
cisely, but the way they have become so deeply impressed upon the 
minds of men is easy to explain. Any religious belief, constantly 
inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressible, 
acquires the force of an instinct, and the very essence of an instinct is 
that it is sure to be followed independently of reason. No testimony 
coming from any source on earth can equal what the Jews would will- 
ingly give, if there was any to give about Jesus Christ ; for they, above 
all others, at the time when the Christian says he lived and died, and 
ever since, have held and thoroughly learned the old testament scrip- 



212 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tures in its original Hebrew form, and it was through and in them, if 
at all, the promised messiah, or deliverer, as the word means, was to 
come to earth. Yet they now deny, and they always have denied, that 
either or any of their prophets ever promised the Jews any messiah, or 
that the Jews ever either expected or desired one to come, and as they 
alone exclusively inhabited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the entire land of 
Canaan, if there had ever been such a strange couple as Joseph and 
Mary, they would have surely known of them, and it would have been 
absolutely impossible for Herod to have caused the slaughter of thous- 
ands of their children, both unknown to them and without finding its 
way into some contemporaneous history, as well as into Matthew's 
gospel, which alone, of all the writers of the new testament or of the 
world, mentions it; or had there been a total eclipse of the sun, and at 
the same time a great earthquake, opening the graves and raising to life 
many dead saints whose bodies had many years before become decom- 
posed, and who were Jews, and then walking naked through the streets 
of Jerusalem in broad daylight, no power on earth could have pre- 
vented such an unheard of event from not only finding a conspicuous 
place in history, but also it would cause every Jew who saw or even 
heard of such an event occurring at a public crucifixion of a criminal, 
from believing and acknowledging that he, Christ, was not only the Son 
of God, but also God himself; but as it is now, Jew converts are as few 
as comets, and when there is one he is always a worthless, disreputable 
scamp, who makes a business of being converted as soon as he finds a 
Christian who is willing to pay, and the Christian is in no sense back- 
ward about offering money, under the pretext of aiding them, and in 
fact there is a society for the purpose of Christianizing the Jews, and a 
fund with which to hire them to be converted; and a young Jew made 
it his only business to go from one Christian sect to another till he had 
been baptized thirty-six times, and went from Catholic to Protestant, 
and was received by both with cordiality, till he had amassed ten thou- 
sand francs, and finally was caught in stealing from the lady who stood 
sponsor for his good conduct, and all this after he had been given a 
fine sum for turning Christian ; and he rewarded her generosity by steal- 
ing her jewels, and was detected and sent to prison; and all this hap- 
pened before he was nineteen years old. His name was Morris Gutt- 
man, and this account is in a late number of the London National 
Reformer, and he was converted by a reformed Jew rabbi, whose name 
is Freshman. The performances of these Christian missionaries are 
simply ridiculous, when they assert that whole tribes and clans of sav- 
ages were turned into Christians by the industrious labors of an hour, 
with a little water and the monotonous reiteration of the names of the 



The Mystery of Thought Unexplainable. 213 

trinity; when the real fact is that any of these savages would be baptized 
tea times every day for a drink of whisky, for religion of whatever kind 
is nothing but an internal or mental ecstasy, independent of either the 
church or Bible, and the best success the missionary ever had, the num- 
ber saved is not near equal to the natural increase of the population 
among which he labors. The distinguished African traveler, Maddern, 
who has lately traveled in Central Africa, says the missionaries do more 
harm than good, and that they only convert the natives from happy, 
frugal, abstemious, temperate heathen, into bummers and lazy vaga- 
bonds, and when the natives of South Africa, the Kaffirs, get religion, 
as they call being a Christian, they brood over it, and consider it a 
spiritual farce and nonsense. 

• The problem of life has never been solved, although man in his 
highest development, in all countries and in all ages of the world, has 
been intent and persistent in the endeavor to account for the mystery 
both of life and of thought, which latter is equally mysterious with the 
former. In vain is the endeavor for any mortal to inquire by what 
means is the human pen, or the one who holds the pen, guided so that 
he can both use the energy necessary to form the words which his 
thoughts have produced, and produce thoughts enough to fill all the 
libraries of the world with printed books, and have ten or even a hun- 
dred times as many manuscripts annually destroyed as are accepted and 
printed, besides all the newspapers, pamphlets and periodicals which 
never go to the binder, and not only has these problems never been 
solved, but there is nothing in this age of profound thought and mental 
commotion that gives the slightest indication that it ever will be, for 
however desirable such a discovery may seem to be, a moment's reflec- 
tion will disclose that it is not a proper subject of inquiry, and no pur- 
pose any better than curiosity, would be served. The human race is 
constantly being both annihilated as to its material existence, and 
replenished with a new set of humanity, by the simple forces of nature, 
with no purpose any more apparent than is seen in the creation and 
destruction ever going 1 on in both the lower animal kingdom and the 
vegetable. We come and play our brief part in the drama of life, and 
we go as mysteriously as consciousness had its birth, and life its' begin- 
ning. No explanation is ever given to us, if ever so earnestly we ask 
for one, why we come and play our automatic part and pass away, and 
rone has ever been found or presented that is either satisfactory or in 
any degree convincing. 

This is a secret which now is, and ever has been, retained by nature, 
in spite of man's most earnest and persistent efforts to discover it, and 
the greatest minds that have ever existed have been as incapable to 



214 The Skeptic's Defense. 

solve the mystery of life and death as the most feeble, so that out from 
the eternity of the past springs an individual spark of consciousness 
which for a brief time feels and knows its existence, only to lose it, and 
be lost in the eternity of the future. Millions and hundreds of thou- 
sands of millions follow other like numbers in the universal journey to 
the grave; every second a man dies and in a like time two are born, and 
life and death clasp hands in the fleeting scenes that on earth character- 
ize existence. Uncertainty and ceaseless changes confront the birth of 
every conscious entity, and the book of fate is a closed volume until 
events occur that makes the book of fate open as history. The future, 
to the limit of the next moment, is veiled from the sight of every con- 
scious being, and the past reveals nothing but the records of a few cen- 
turies of transitory events, like to those which now occur, as man blindly 
struggles for a continuity of life, in opposition to the forces of nature 
and the evils inseparable from all human society. 

The greatest mind of the nineteenth century, in some ways of esti- 
mating greatness, declares that nature creates man without a purpose, 
and destroys him without regret, and this declaration has weight and 
value because of its truth, or its apparent truth, and facts accessible to 
every one seem to sustain such a declaration; for when conditions are 
right or favorable, nature creates, and when unfavorable or wrong, 
nature destroys just as spontaneously; and who is bold enough to 
affirm that some power outside of nature creates the conditions under 
which all phenomena occur? For as nature creates conditions, and 
always works in accordance with them, it must be apparent to all who 
think at all that whether nature is engaged in creation or destruction, 
her labors are never attended with either approval or regrets, with 
pleasure or aversion, but always with sublime indifference, which is 
never modified. Man, so considered by man her highest handiwork, is 
wiped out of existence by the forces of nature as relentlessly as insects, 
serpents or any ferocious wild beast is destroyed by the same forces, 
and woe be to that life, on sea or land, animate or inanimate, exposed to 
her angry moods, for no wild beast can compare with the sea for 
mangling its prey. The waves are full of sharp claws and teeth; the 
north winds sting; the billows swallow what the waves have masticated 
with their hungry jaws. The ocean strikes like a lion with its heavy 
paw, seizing and destroying in the same moment both man and his 
works, with the same indifference, whether the man be holy or unholy, 
a Christian or a pagan; what cares the ocean, for nature both created it 
and gave it its power; so that the logic of disaster at sea is beyond the 
grasp of human skill, or any revelations of science; and so, we may fur- 
ther add, is the science of life and death, or more properly its logic, for 



Why Man is Not an Accountable Being. 215 

a conflict of forces is ever going on without any intermission, in the 
realms of nature, and while one of the forces works to create, another 
works at the same time to destroy, and both come from the same source, 
and are always manifesting without either purpose or design. 

Man, like all creations of nature, is a creature of fate inexorable and 
unchangeable, and the products of fate are the results of inevitable 
necessity, for a man is born because the forces of nature compel his 
birth, and his death is also compulsory and inevitable for the same 
cause. Between birth and death he is a helpless creature of those condi- 
tions which he did not create, and which he cannot control or alter, and 
lie is therefore simply and only an automaton in the hands of nature, 
which is his creator, and consequently a good man deserves no more 
credit for his goodness than a weathercock does for revealing the direc- 
tion of the wind, for he is what he is from the necessity created by his 
conditions, and therefore no mortal man who has ever existed can per- 
form a strictly independent act. Consequently, a bad man deserves no 
more censure for his vile conduct than a good man deserves credit for 
his virtuous conduct, both being what they are from necessity, and the 
effect of conditions which were unavoidable. That man has never yet 
lived w r ho knew what fate or necessity would introduce into his life one 
hour or even moment in advance of the then present, and every life jour- 
ney from birth to death is made with blinded eyes, while impulse and 
caution alternate in shaping the route to be traveled. Impulse is the 
propelling power to every action in all living beings, and every impulse 
that stirs the mind of mankind is involuntary, for man does not create 
it or set it in motion, and, as all impulses are dependent on conditions, 
man is only the slave of these conditions, without even a vestige or as 
much as a shadow of free' will, and as there is no way to account for 
choice in an emergency, neither is there any for actions, and constant 
surprises confront us in the lives of nearly all who are of enough import- 
ance to become conspicuous. Unaccountable conduct is a common 
thing, and moods and impulses sway all mankind as the wind stirs the 
leaves and branches of a tree, and if strong enough uproots the tree 
itself. Historical events that affected races and nations of antiquity 
were invariably the work of fate, and in the lives of nations as well as 
individuals a destiny shaped and controlled by nature alone is always 
at work to produce results, and men, races and nations are only puppets 
in her hands, and the greatest names in history are those of* men who 
were simply the creatures of circumstances. Fate both produced them 
and made them conspicuous. The American Revolution produced all 
the fame and notoriety of George Washington, as did the Rebellion of 
General Grant and Abraham Lincoln. 



210 The Skeptic's Defense. 

The overruling power of fate or destiny is seen on every hand, and 
no man can or does in the slightest degree shape the course of human 
events ; if it did, history can be written in advance. Nations rise and fall, 
nations progress and retrograde, and never was national or individual 
progress seen or known to be in a straight line, without interruption or 
interference to its end. As night follows day, and action is succeeded 
by a period of rest, so all progress seems at times to cease in human 
affairs, and the world of humanity rises only to relapse and fall, as 
history and the ruins of once populous empires testify. 

That civilization has once prevailed on this globe in a higher and 
grander state than any now visible, is no doubt true. Therefore, when 
we reflect on the vast and varied mutations, historic and prehistoric, 
which have attended the birth and death of untold millions of human 
beings on this planet, well may we ask and wonder about the problem 
of life and the object of nature, which seem without a purpose,- and the 
world stands to-day, as it ever has, with no good or sufficient explana- 
tion of why nature creates man and endows him with such splendid fac- 
ulties and opportunities, and then destroys him without regret, and in 
the meantime so circumscribes his average abilities and inclinations as 
to effectually prevent any perceptible advance from age to age, either in 
moral or physical attainments. There is no end to the boasting, how- 
ever, which Christians of all varieties indulge in, with reference to the 
vast advance in every department of both industrial and intellectual 
pursuits, which has been made in every Christian land since the Bible 
has been introduced in such lands, and since religious sects have each 
had a vehicle in the shape of a magazine or newspaper, in which to 
parade their annual reports; and these mediums are allowed to exag- 
gerate as to them appears necessary, to encourage those who read these 
reports to persevere, with both financial and. personal aid, to maintain 
and further increase these greatly overdrawn representations. 

The church authorities in the Roman church always include the 
whole population of any Catholic country in the enumeration of their 
church census, and in other countries they include both parents and 
children, and then double the number, to swell the aggregate, with the 
intention to deceive both their own adherents and their rivals, and this 
course is justified because emigration is constantly adding more than 
death is diminishing their number. But the reverse of this/ is revealed 
when they report their financial condition, for in those reports they con- 
stantly represent what seems likely to be true, that they are hard up, so 
as to be on the verge of actual bankruptcy. 

The above statements in still greater force apply to all other religious 
organizations. In New England, once the stronghold of Puritanism, 



How the Weak Belief in God is Strengthened. 217 

there is a relapse towards paganism that is plainly perceptible, and the 
religious periodicals are vainly endeavoring to reconcile their real con- 
dition with the census reports, and when we reflect that the editors of 
religious periodicals get their information from ministers, and that they 
report not only infants, but dead persons, on their rolls, it becomes 
painfully evident that things numerical are not actually quite as rosy 
for Christianity as appears on the surface, making it to be almost or 
quite impossible to reconcile the census figures with the church reports 
of past years; and another serious wail of discouragement is disclosed 
in these reports, such as the sparse attendance at the public meetings, 
the inroads of the Sunday papers in the cities and towns reached by rail- 
roads, the scarcity of young men of the required ability as candidates 
for the ministry, for it is only the brightest specimens that are accepted 
to be trained for the pulpit of orthodox churches at this time. 

The real, and perhaps the only reason, why the problem of life has 
always been such a great mystery is apparent in the well known fact 
that man, in his ignorance, has not been able to perceive the unknown 
and unseen reasons underlying all phenomena, so he naturally or 
instinctively assumes there must be some cause; therefore he postulates 
one cause, and calls that cause God, for a creator and sustainer of all 
things, and his priest sanctions and confirms his instinctive assumptions 
by all the arts and encouragements in his power, by constantly referring 
to and preaching about 1 this God, and both praying to him or it, and 
instructing his dupes to also continually and earnestly pray to him, and 
thus everybody takes it for granted, without wishing or expecting one 
word of proof, or even hint of the constant and unalterable operation of 
nature's laws; so that for anyone to even hint a doubt of its truth brings 
to the offender the anathemas of both the priest and his silly dupes whom 
lie has instructed, and they all add to anathemas, curses and awful con- 
sequences after death. 

How deplorable the condition of any person, male or female, who 
has been born and reared in any religious community where his reason 
is held in subjection to religion and mental slavery to priestcraft, and it 
was the condition in which he was nurtured, and by which always after- 
ward he was environed, so that he had not the remotest suspicion that 
he was other than a free moral agent, and had all the liberty he either 
desired or required; and yet how fortunate is the condition of such a 
person, when he is 'able, unaided, to break the fetters of superstition, 
and emerge into that mental content and freedom of which he formerly 
was ignorant that such an attainment was either possible or desirable, 
and then discovers for the first time diat he has no use for any Bible, 
priest or theologian, for he now realizes that the present life is the only 



218 The Skeptic's Defense. 

one we ought to either know or care anything about, and he then 
ceases to cultivate either hope or fear about any other, or to apprehend 
any possibility that his soul, if he has one, of which he is now in doubt, 
will find the hereafter any more pleasant or unpleasant than this life and 
the present moment is. 

Can any condition be more undesirable than a firm belief in religious 
dogmas that consign to eternal torment the great majority of mankind, 
or that the wrath of an angry God is necessary to insure right conduct 
in living? The brightest and most profound intellects the world of 
mind has ever produced, either in ancient or modern times, are such as 
have been in the past, and are in the present, entirely free from supersti- 
tious fear or hope concerning anything hereafter, or beyond the present 
life, may have in store for them, and such persons uniformly leave 
behind them, when they die, a record of right living that needs no 
apology or concealment, for he cares not or desires not to know simply 
what either himself or anyone else believes, but instead says to one who 
endeavors to instruct him, this is only theory or speculation, and it is 
not knowledge; and so he never requires a priest to tell him as to what 
that priest only believes, but instead says to him, tell me only what you 
know and I do not, for that only is instruction, for I consider that the 
happiness and welfare of mankind are wholly dependent on an accurate 
reliable knowledge of our physical bodies, and their needs and require- 
ments, instead of the supposed conditions of an imaginary soul, which 
wc may or may not have in some other future world; for is not this 
world full of poverty, sickness, pain, ignorance and every conceivable 
kind of misery? And is not science infinitely better every way than 
theology, to buth bless and redeem the world? And must not all the 
hopes for the future improvement of the human race rest on science, 
and is not that alone sufficient to meet that want? 

This is a truth which all past history confirms, and is absolute knowl- 
edge, and not mere theological speculation, that the true man who has 
thus attained a complete freedom from every superstitious belief,and has 
emerged into the domain of true scientific knowledge, has no desire or 
inclination to punish personal enemies, for he has none; he has no 
anxiety about the present, for he uncomplainingly accepts what the 
present has for him to enjoy or suffer; and he has no regrets for the past, 
for he has discharged his whole duty, as that duty at the time it had to 
be met seemed to him to require ; and he has no hopes or fears for the 
future, so that he is always ready for death, the inevitable end of every 
living thing, whether prepared or unprepared, when its time comes. 

How unspeakably happy, here and now,every man is that has arrived 
at mature age without having been enslaved in any perceptible degree 



How the Prophets Are to Be Estimated. 219 

by priestly influence, for this is in every sense, except perhaps in a social 
sense, the most fearfully blighting" and poisonous influence on a large 
scale, that has ever cursed humanity, and the instances where its deadly 
influence has not contaminated every individual in a greater or lesser 
degree are indeed rare; but now every indication gives at least a faint 
reason to hope that perhaps the near, but surely the distant, future will 
realize a change for the better, and that the dead free thinkers of the 
future will be relieved of the presence of one of the ninety and nine 
thousand ministers, that are now waiting both for the fee and the chance 
to mumble something doleful over the remains of every dead infidel, 
and then and there utter some of the most ungodly lies about them 
in their power to invent, and at the same time and place eulogize to the 
most sickening degree some old humbug like David and his bastard 
son Solomon, one of which was said to be the author of most of the 
Psalms, and the other the author of a lot of stale old proverbs, and a 
let of scandalously lecherous poetical effusions, as are recorded in the 
book called the Songs of Solomon. Why should this man David be a 
fit subject for a Christian's fulsome eulogy, for he was pre-eminently a 
man of blood, and, unless his historian knew of something in his favor 
not handed down to our times, his character as either a great or good 
man, or even a just man, is not to be commended, and in his own times 
he was estimated at his true and only value, as a military commander, 
who was both brave and blood-thirsty, but was so tyrannical that his 
immediate successors, imitating his example, and threatening the people 
to be a thousand fold more oppressive than David had been, that it 
caused a revolt and civil war that had the result to permanently divide 
the nation, and cause those that withdrew to disappear, by being 
absorbed by intermarriage with other nations, and thus defeated God's 
promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation, equal in number to 
the sand of the sea, and in power to the sea itself. 

Now, a prophet such as the Bible represents the prophets of Judea 
to have been, always look back before they look forward, and their 
prophecies of what is future) have simply their desires or wishes for a 
basis, and these prophets, whose writings the Bible has brought to our 
notice, wished earnestly for the reunion of these revolted tribes, and 
therefore faintly predicted a future restoration of ancient harmony and 
power, but only as a fulfillment of their personal desires, and these 
prophets had in a great measure superseded in respect and authority the 
priestly office, and become celebrated as foretelling by an insight more 
sure than any other what would in the future be the general wish, and 
that was to be a yearning after the golden or prosperous age of David 
and Solomon, who lived about two hundred years anterior to these 



220 The Skeptic's Defense. 

prophets. The people longed for the reunion of these lost tribes, under a 
king who should be of the tribe and lineage of the famous David, but 
this was never to be realized, for the prophets had no clear, certain 
promise to give, only a dim or faint shadow, enough to give to some 
enthusiasts a faint hope, and not strong enough to give any reasonable 
expectation; and so no result but the most grievous disappointment to 
a few enthusiasts has ever been had, and the Jews no longer expect or 
desire any change in their condition, that will reorganize them into a 
separate nation, and are gradually being absorbed into other nations, 
and will inevitably in time disappear, and their holy, God-ordained and 
instructed prophets' dream will never be realized, and as the Jews of our 
day naturally looked back to the success and prosperity of their nation 
under David and Solomon was the result of their great godliness and 
piety, they supposed these two princes were worthy of the adoration and 
imitation of all Jews, in all future time; and so the Christian theologian, 
in like manner, has taken the utmost pains to make it evident that this 
Messiah, so long expected by the Jews, and who was to be of the house 
and lineage of David, is the identical one that they pretend was born of 
the Virgin Mary, long after the Jews ag a nation had abandoned any 
hope or expectation of the fulfillment of any ancient prophecy, for they 
had not only ceased to exist as a united nation, but they had perceived 
that David, and Solomon, his son by an adulterous intercourse with 
another man's wife, were both of them rakes, adulterers and murderers ; 
but notwithstanding all this, they were very pious and submissive to the 
priests, as this same 1 class and breed of hypocrites now are, for which 
reason the priests proclaim David to have been a man after God's own 
heart, and that he never did any evil but in the matter of Uriah, the 
Hittite. 

One of the wickedest and most contemptible lies that Christian min- 
isters persist in telling, after having first invented it, when they know the 
fact is exactly the reverse, is that religion or Christianity is to be given 
credit for all the advance beyond a savage state that man has ever made, 
when they know that no advance has ever been made, except in spite of 
the stern and determined opposition of the church, by a few higher and 
nobler comprehensive scientific individual minds, and the Christian, like 
all others, has profited by the advance, and insultingly boasts of what 
another than himself has done, and pushes the real benefactor of the 
race to one side, and not only steals all the credit of the wisdom and 
foresight of other men, but makes martyrs of the greatest inventors and 
thinkers that have ever lived. These, who are thus treated by the 
Christian knaves, are in reality the only men who make epochs, and the 
real architects of the splendid fabric of exact knowledge and fruitful 



A Comparison of Scientists and Theologians. 221 

ideas or methods, and completes them by pushing them to their ultimate 
conclusion, and by such means advance society in spite of and independ- 
ent of Christianity, the Bible, or any other influence, by eliminating and 
exposing errors, and by demonstrating propositions that supersede 
speculative inquiry. 

Such great men as Buffon, Linneaus, Cuvier, Lamarck, Humboldt, 
and many others, set forth the results of a fully developed science, and 
ercate a foundation for biology as a science, and of its relations to clima- 
tology, geography, and geology, which all find their root in the works 
and demonstrations of such men, instead of the fanatical or Christian 
speculative theologian, who never pretend to have but one idea, and 
harp on that, and close their eyes to all else, and then say the sun never 
shines without their permission. Such great scientists and philoso- 
phers as have been above mentioned, with others such as Socrates, 
Plato, Aristotle, and hundreds of thousands of others, have Ijved outside 
of and before Christianity, in former times, and in all ages since what is 
called the Christian era, but falsely so called, and have never been 
identified with any branch of the Christian church, but on the contrary 
have always been stigmatized as infamous infidels, as are now in these 
days such great men as Mill, Spencer, Huxley, Tindall and Ingersoll, 
and while it may be conceded that these men are not uniform with each 
other, but each thinks, speaks and writes for himself, or independent of 
everybody else, but, notwithstanding this fact, every theologian must 
admit that in the aggregate results they do all that is done to enlighten, 
instruct and civilize mankind. 

Natural science is as diverse,separate and independent of theology as it 
is possible to imagine, for theology is a mere myth or fable, and as diverse 
and lacking in harmonious unity, and as open to the charge of infidelity, 
as science or its votaries and discoverers are, only on a different or dis- 
tinct basis, but they are never so stigmatized by scientists. The infa- 
mous, bigoted wretches who compose the advanced theologians of all 
periods are too narrow and shallow in their mental development to find 
room for more than one thought or idea, and that they push to such an 
unwarranted extreme of absurdity that they become to men of large 
minds too odious to be by them tolerated, or treated with but little 
respect or regard, but for the present they have the floor, or possession, 
and unopposed, so to speak, access to the public ear, and this public 
from whom they draw their salaries is too indolent or indifferent to have 
force enough to as much as desire to throw them off or to one side, and 
this state of things makes the priests of all kinds and degrees feel both 
secure and insolent, and the professors who instruct them secure in their 
ungodly and wicked deception, which is to them well known to be such. 



222 The Skeptic's Defense. 

These facts above stated are obvious, and are too mildly_ and mod- 
estly stated and characterized, but it is both wholesome and needful that 
they be stated, for it is in the interest of theology, which claims to be a 
science, but is not, and it is in the interest of those teachers or professors 
of theology, who desire or hope to be something more than the mere 
inventors of creeds, that it should be taken to heart, instead of in a 
sneering way pretend not to consider it worth attention. It is a great 
pity, as well as a great mistake or blunder, on somebody's part, that all 
Christians must be classed together, for between all Protestant Christ- 
ians and the Catholics, who claim to be the only genuine and real ones, 
is a difference both wide and deep, so that it is impossible for them to 
act together or in harmony, but they are constantly and rapidly drawing 
apart, or in opposite directions, for in all Protestant theology the funda- 
mental or essential doctrine of the manner in or through which the 
regeneration or new birth takes place in the human soul, when it 
"gets religion," is this way: A person gets religion when he don't 
know it, for if he knows it he has not got it, and if he has it he cannot 
lose it, and finally if he loses it he never had it. Such is Protestant the- 
ology, a mystery beyond and above the ability of any human reason to 
approach, much less to understand, but the endeavor is persisted in so 
as to make an excuse for its existence as a separate organization, and 
the genuine and indisputable claim of the Roman Catholic for prece- 
dence cannot be disputed, and therefore it must be recognized as pure 
Christianity, or the very name of Christianity will inevitably disappear 
from among men, and the scandalous and infamous history of Roman- 
ism makes a union with that body so infamous, degrading and unpopu- 
lar, that a separation must continue, and one or the other must be 
regarded as anti-Christ. 

There is an acknowledged impropriety and misapplication of terms 
to stigmatize the whole who oelong to any Protestant sect as a foe of 
science, or of the acquirement of scientific knowledge by those individ- 
uals whose means and endowments promise any reasonable success, but 
there at the same time must be made the charge that it is always insisted 
on by the priests and theologians that religious knowledge is first in 
importance, and secular or scientific attainment must be subordinate or 
secondary in importance. On the other hand, in every Catholic Christ- 
ian land on earth, the church has in the past and in the present fought 
and hindered science of every kind, to the utmost of its ability, and so 
now it is one of the most astonishing indications of a progressive change 
in the views of the pope, or head of the Roman church, brought about 
by the civil or political revolution in Italy, which has taken away from 
him every vestige of secular authority, so that he is a mere prisoner in 



The Compulsory Change in the Pope. 223 

his former palace, which is now owned by the government; that he has 
consented to have an astronomical observatory located in the Vatican, 
and actually setting apart a certain tower in which the telescope and 
other instruments required may be placed. 

Is not this an indication of progress, when the most bigoted and con- 
temptible set of religious fanatics that have ever lived on earth are forced 
by the civil power, in the very stronghold from whence have come all the 
anathemas and curses upon every attempt at progress to be made, to 
bow the unwilling knee in the most humble acquiescence to the demand 
of science. How long is it since an Italian astronomer was roasted 
alive, in this same city of Rome, for daring to declare and maintain that 
Moses and Joshua had no correct knowledge of astronomy, by the most 
holy fathers of this most holy church; and now this same church and 
the successors of these same holy fathers proposes to permit an astro- 
nomical observatory within these consecrated precincts, thus giving a 
direct lie both to all its former teaching and former managers; but we 
must remember this consent was compulsory, and the government who 
owned the property would build the observatory whether the pope gave 
his consent or not; therefore no credit is due to Christianity for this 
concession. 

Now comes the pertinent inquiry: If the former fathers of the 
church have taught and maintained, even by, burning and by every kind 
of the most horrible torture that the inventive genius of man has been 
able to contrive, the most ridiculously absurd and the most atrociously 
erroneous doctrines, what proof have we to show that the present 
fathers of this same church, in this same city of Rome, are not now 
preaching and proclaiming, by both writing and printing, all doctrines 
they now hold with the same liability to error and that they are now 
every way as ridiculous as were ever the doctrines of their predecessors ; 
and we need only to wait awhile for the proof of this statement. 

Is not such a state of things a sad commentary, and also very dis- 
couraging to Christianity, as it is also to humanity in general, for what 
prospect can there be that the future will be any more favorable for its 
spread and growth, or of its truth, than the past has been in an unchang- 
able church? Is not this situation a humiliating one, and a sad com- 
mentary upon this church and its Bible, its creeds and its God, who is 
said by them to be an omniscient God, seeing the end clearly from before 
the beginning, the effect before the cause. A God, the creator of all 
things, the founder and ordainer of his own religious system of worship, 
but one who knows not his own mind or purpose in creating anything; 
who makes, for instance, a spade, but owing to its complex construc- 
untj pajxp o; Lreui 3}iuu uo puadsp }snra pun 'it aziiiSooaj jou ssop uoi; 



224 1 he Skeptic's Defense. 

how to administer the affairs of men by their calling upon him in prayer 
to do this or that, and he himself directing and encouraging them to 
persist in doing that very thing, for prayer amounts to just this and 
no more. Such is the God of the Bible and of the Christian church, and 
it is surely nothing more nor less than absurdity run mad. 

What then is religion of any kind or variety but the false and simple 
creation of the fancy of finite, ignorant man, contrived in the infancy of 
his primitive state, in all the past' ages, and in every country of the 
world, and how easy and simple is the proof thereof, for we have only to 
search the page of history to find it in abundance; for by its revelations 
what was orthodox yesterday is to-day rank heresy, and that which 
to-day is regarded and treated as heresy of the rankest kind will in the 
near future just as surely be rank orthodoxy, but will then be accepted 
and treated as undoubted heavenly truth; and this has always been so, 
and will continue to be so, till the end of time, which will never end. 
Ignorance, bloody fanaticism and superstition in all the past have been 
the pliant tools of the Christian church, as well as of every other form, 
but on the contrary, and in opposition to it and them, science and popu- 
lar education have always been the true champions and the only redeem- 
ers of mankind, who have always languished and groaneH under priestly 
rule, and will continue to be indefinitely if the priest is not in some way 
abolished, which can only be done by cutting off his revenues; for when- 
ever or wherever these two antagonistic principles meet, a bitter, vindic- 
tive and unrelenting war is at once inaugurated by the church, to 
maintain its usurped authority over the minds and over the fanatical pas- 
sions and tendencies of the ignorant and superstitious masses, who they 
have raised and trained from infancy to be their willing and obedient 
dupes. How, then, is this inevitable war waged? Is it an equal con- 
quest by moral suasion and peaceful methods? Never in the past, but 
always with the rack, the cross, the stake, and all the other devilishly 
contrived machines of torture of the holy inquisition. That is the way 
it always has exerted its powerful, baleful influence in the past, in extend- 
ing and upholding ianatical ignorance, always strenuously and sternly 
opposing as emanating from the devil each and every step in art, 
science, literature and education. Nevertheless, the very moment the 
church observes the general acceptance or triumph of any scientific 
fact or common sense principle, it immediately scrambles into the pulpit, 
while its hands are yet reeking with the blood of its roasted victims, and 
at once proclaims to the astonished world: O ! yes, these truths are self 
evident. The church teaches them, in fact, has always taught them ; for 
are they not in agreement with the Bible and with common sense? 
However, not for a moment realizing that such an admission is both 
brazen-faced and sheer hypocrisy. 



The Cause of Any Adyance Explained. 225 

What influence has caused so great and beneficient a revolution as 
now prevails in some communities, in this, the only real free country on 
earth, as to permit a poor, priest-ridden man to speak and think freely 
his own thoughts? Has it been the church, by either its example or per- 
mission? Not at all! If not the church, then what was it? It is sim- 
ply and only the imperceptible, silent, invisible march of intelligence, 
caused and wholly supported by science. This, and nothing but this. 
Can any sane person deny that even at this day the Christian church, if 
it dare, would burn, torture and butcher, as freely and unmercifully as 
it once did, in all its ancient devilishness? Most assuredly it would, and 
it is only restrained through fear of utter and complete annihilation. 
Notwithstanding some branches of the church now acquiesces in and 
hypocritically approves of a given small amount of intelligence for the 
masses, yet it, as a whole, quietly and secretly lies in wait, like a loath- 
some, venomous reptile, watching with hideous anxiety and hellish 
hate, ever praying for the time and opportunity to come, that it may 
bury its poisonous and deadly fangs into the quivering flesh of its 
unsuspecting victims, universal humanity, and by so doing stamp out 
once and forever all public school systems, in whatsoever parts of the 
world they may be found, thereby destroying at one fell swoop every 
semblance of independent intelligence. (How great and inextinguish- 
able is the debt due, from both the past and the present church 
be-devilled people, to those few noble, heroic souls, who have dared to 
face the diabolical hate of the church, by manfully and boldly proclaim- 
ing the truth and the right of man to use that greatest and best gift of 
nature, the unconfined and comprehensive reason, without the permis- 
sion or the surveillance of a pack of self-constituted intermeddlers, who 
heretofore have cheekily assumed to direct and control his conscience. 

Let me ask one more question. Why does the church, in these 
latter days, reluctantly, though apparently openly, acquiesce in, while 
secretly rejecting and arguing against, and trying their utmost to nullify 
or neutralize, any and every scientific fact? Why does she do this, 
except it be because a majority of revenue producing mankind are of the 
intelligent class, and the ecclesiastical leaders of the church know full 
well that, however it may desire to do so, should it still cling to its for- 
mer Biblical science it would soon have so few adherents that its rev- 
enues (which after all are the most important part of this comtemptible, 
farcical institution), would dwindle away to nothing, it being a self- 
evident and indisputable proposition, which needs only one simple 
experiment to conclusively demonstrate, that without its continuous, 
inflowing, abundant stream of golden revenues, the Christian organiza- 
tion, and all others like it, would at once and forever cease to exist. To 



226 The Skeptic's Defense. 

prove this latter proposition, the dupes of the priests would only have 
to discontinue their contributions to speedily realize the simple, unde- 
niable fact, that modern Christianity is existing, and endeavoring to 
continue its existence, for revenue only, and without such continual and 
abundant stream of revenues its life not only, but its very remembrance 
amongst men, would be a matter of extremely short duration. Just try 
for once the experiment on a large scale, and then form a universal non- 
contributing trust, and see how quickly this prediction would be fulfilled, 
and every form and breed of religious imposition, deception and' fraud 
would forever disappear from the face of the earth. It is a study of not 
only a peculiar interest, but also of great importance, to skeptics, at 
least, the make up or composition of that body called by themselves the 
orthodox Christian church; for after you have selected out about a tenth 
part of all the individuals who are in good and regular standing or on 
the roll o^ membership, who are the leaders or the officers, as elders, 
deacons, trustees, etc., and who are thus selected because of their con- 
tinued and zealous devotion to the interests, prosperity and welfare of the 
church; the other nine-tenths are for the most part figure heads, or 
spectators, but they are expected to be pew holders and supporters of all 
the financial interests which the ruling elders or other officers consider 
advisable, and when that duty is faithfully performed, very little interest 
or anxiety is felt as to their belief or conduct; and in a general way 
all who are of enough decision of character to be willing to enroll them- 
selves among any church organization, also have enough ambition to 
engage in some business enterprise needing the patronage of the public, 
as well of others as of their own chosen sect; and if the man has a wife, 
she must belong to a different sect from the husband, so as to secure 
more patronage and division of labor; consequently he must conform 
outwardly, at least, to the usages of those among whom he lives, 
and whose patronage he expects to receive, and consequently prosper, 
and therefore he never allows himself to doubt or dispute any of the com- 
monly received religious doctrines or observances, for he is too busy or 
too indolent to inform himself as to their truth, and too indifferent to 
care whether they are true or not; but there is a constant change in both 
membership and officers, occasioned by death or change of residence, 
and vacant places in both are supplied from a system of cultivation and 
preparation, constantly kept in operation by frequent prayer meetings, 
for practice; the Sunday-school, to keep alive superstition in the young 
and impressible children; by Christian Endeavor, to strengthen early 
instruction, and a garden from, which the adult greenhorn is transplanted 
into the church, to keep vacant places filled up. Long experience and 
the co-operation of an educated priesthood, combined with the best 



The Process of Civilization Explained. 227 

talent in a business direction among church officials, so far has suc- 
ceeded in keeping alive a sickly and inefficient organization, who if the 
real, exact truth could be ascertained, are more infidel than orthodox, 
and who give what they give, either of money or effort, because of self- 
interest instead of a sense of duty or pleasure, and dare not refuse to be 
in harmony with any scheme for the material advance of any enterprise 
the body to which he belongs sees best to undertake; and in estimating 
the amounts that come into the treasury of any church, belonging to 
any of the Protestant sects, nine-tenths or more are received from men 
who not only are not church members at all, but are skeptics of a more 
or less pronounced grade of unbelief, but are in some kind of business 
that is more likely to be enough more prosperous by a generous liberal- 
ity, than if it is withheld, so that on business principles it is the best pol- 
icy, so considered, to be liberal in the support of those enterprises which 
the church engages in, the object being to secure a liberal patronage, 
and it is from this class of men, instead of genuine Christian men, in 
an\' Christian land, that any advance is made in civilization; and this 
enterprise of business and commerce with other advanced nations who 
have made progress in science, art and literature, together with climate, 
and such other natural advantages as are indispensable to human welfare 
and progress, without the slightest reference to any form of religion, is 
the only source from which any nation ever was able to emerge from a 
savage into, first, a barbarous state, then into a half civilized state, and 
finally by a wise application of the experience of past generations, and 
a more vigorous and energetic pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the 
cultivation and encouragement of learning among the lower orders of 
society, a fully civilized condition is made possible, and in no other 
way, for you will look in vain for any advance where the blight of 
Christianity has fastened itself on any nation as firmly as it has always 
done on Spain, who was the inventor and chief supporter of the infa- 
mous holy office, or the inquisition, that arrested and prevented all 
progress in science, art, literature, and education from the fifteenth cen- 
tury up to the present time in all countries where Spanish con- 
quest was able to penetrate, and fasten its ungodly priestcraft unop- 
posed, as it has in all South America, Central America and Mexico, who 
are at the present time farther from a fully civilized state than they were 
before that deadly institution, falsely called Christianity, was first intro- 
duced into those countries; and Italy and France were hindered more 
than two hundred years by the curse of priestcraft, and they now, after 
having: emerged jn some degree from Jesuitical priestly domination,, 
begin to show some sign that they are about to accept and imitate such 
progressive countries as England and the United States of America. 



228 The Skeptic's Defense. 

who never began to prosper till entirely free from the pope of Rome in 
the time of Henry the Eighth; and Christianity has not been able in 
these countries to hinder any progress, for all the arts and sciences have 
so far overcome religious and superstitious opposition that a fair 
progress has been realized, and the prospect is now more promising 
than ever before that religious" opposition and impediment to learning is 
about to cease; and now, if the real truth could be disclosed, the Christ- 
ian church in this free land is nothing but a sham and hollow pretence, 
besides its being considered an intolerable, useless burden and damage, 
for it began with a shameful lie and one of the most stupid frauds that 
was ever perpetrated on any portion of the human race, about nineteen 
hundred years ago, when a lot of stupid, ignorant shepherds pretended 
they saw a mere phantom of a crazy imagination called an angel, which 
nobody of any mind greater than a mere idiot ever saw, or even believed 
in, and this angel was with them on the side of some mountain in Judea, 
where they w^ere watching the sheep, in the winter time, or, as the Christ- 
ian church all over thef w T orld has agreed, was December twenty-fifth, 
five days before the year one of the Christian era, when there suddenly 
appeared in addition to this angel, who was the leader, a multitude of 
the heavenly host, and these shepherds distinctly heard them all sing 
these words in Hebrew, for the shepherds were Jews, and could there- 
fore understand no other, which words, after receiving three transla- 
tions and eight revisions, have come to us in English : ft Glory to God 
in the highest, and peace on earth, good will to men." Only one evan- 
gelist mentions this humbug, and he don't tell us whether it was sung 
more than once, or whether it was repeated many times, but they went 
back into heaven, and the curious are advised to read what Luke says 
about it in the second chapter from the fifteenth to the twentieth verses, 
inclusive, revised version. 

With the first part of this curious song we are not so much con- 
cerned, but this prophecy, " Peace on Earth," requires some little exam- 
ination. The Christian says, this babe of Bethlehem was the Messiah, 
who would introduce what was never before known in the world, a new 
epoch of universal peace and harmony. A lot of men, or what pre- 
tended to be men, believed this silly fable, and more that was afterwards 
added to it, and by naming themselves Christians pretended to have 
experienced a miraculous change of mind, or a radical transformation, 
which they called regeneration, or being born again, and, to give color 
or excuse for such a change, they invented that ridiculous scene, where 
Nicodemus was one of the actors, and the Christ the other, and recorded 
it in the third chapter of the gospel by John, and when this change was 
had it made love and not bitter hate the ruling principle in their subse- 



Comparison of Christians with Savages. 229 

quent nature and conduct, and that under or because of this influence 
of good will, or love, nothing more vile or destructive to human happi- 
ness than absolute peace and harmony was to be, in their character or 
conduct, manifested toward all other men or each other, by these regen- 
erated men, or Christians; and this is the theory that has been intro- 
duced and held sway in spheres and communities of increasing magni- 
tude for nineteen centuries, or thereabouts, and with what good or bad 
results? Individuals to the number of many thousands have considered 
this doctrine, or precept, so important to mankind at large, that good 
will or love to man has justified hatred, cruelty, and even murder, of 
the most revolting description, towards all men who dare doubt or deny 
the truth of these nonsensical and impossible stories or fables. 

The nations that have been and are known as Christian nations have 
been the most abusive and aggressive, in extending, by the most bloody 
and desolating war, and the most unjustifiable conquest, their posses- 
sions, and the gospel of peace and good will has been everywhere that 
has been possible, or desirable, introduced and extended by sword and 
flame, infinitely more savage and brutal than any other nations about 
whom history has left any record. 

In all lands where Christianity, such as it is, prevails, as well as in 
those where it has never been heard of, and to the same or greater 
extent, in spite of this empty but boasting profession of love and good 
will, a system has always, and does at present, prevail, by which the only 
methods of obtaining a livelihood by the great majority of any such 
people has been to either rob the masses entirely of their labor, by a 
system of absolute downright slavery, or failing in that, to compel men 
to work for less pay than the value of their product, and then make them 
pay more for their required goods than they have cost, which methods 
are a direct violation of the pretended law of love by which Christianity 
bcastingly pretends to be governed, and on the spread of which they 
base the lying pretence of advancing mankind, all they can show above 
a savage state, when any savage nation would scorn such unworthy 
methods, and instinctively have more just and humane perceptions of 
right conduct. 

Christian men and Christian nations are banded together, and com- 
mitted to the upholding of force and fraud, as the ruling principles of 
politics and economies, and they never see any weak and defenceless 
people in possession of any desirable locality, but their cupidity and 
avarice is stimulated to forthwith seize it by force, and rob the right 
owners of all their possessions, and either reduce them to slavery or anni- 
hilate them entirely, when at the same time they loudly and lyingly pro- 
fess to be governed by the theory of that angel song,Peace and good will. 



230 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Millions upon millions of Christian men are always in arms, awaiting the 
signal to destroy each other, in every Christian land, each nation or 
sovereign calling on God and the carpenter's son to speed and give vic- 
tory to the right, which is to the one that has the most artillery and 
bravery, and countless treasure are constantly expended in means both 
of defence and destruction, and all in the name of religion and civiliza- 
tion and good will, and these very men, by the thousands, who most 
loudly proclaim themselves followers of Jesus, are banded together to 
secure monopolies of land, wood, coal, minerals, natural products, in 
fact everything needful for the life and comfort of mankind, and by 
requiring men to labor for them for less than half the value they create, 
and forcing them and others to pay twice the cost of the articles they 
require for food, clothing and shelter, they heap up riches and live in 
luxury, while the great mass of mankind around them are struggling 
with poverty and with compulsory privation. Is not Christianity 
responsible for all this and every evil that afflicts the secular welfare, the 
physical welfare, and the moral welfare in Christian lands? And if it is, 
let it cease to boast of its being the regenerating power that has elevated 
men in Christian lands above savages, for nineteen centuries of the 
belief and promulgating the fable of Jesus and his love, have ignomin- 
iously failed to bring peace and good will to men, or even to give any 
reason to hope that the future will be better than the past has been in 
these respects, for the tendency is all the time in the other direction. 

Therefore it has been reserved for those who reject this so-called 
revelation to point out the means by which peace and good will may 
be secured, and to convince men that it is not by a miraculous regen- 
eration of human nature, but by the application of reason to the spheres 
of politics and economics, that society will be regenerated, if at all. 
Instead of believing as the Bible and the priest tell you, that human 
society is divinely ordered, and that submission to rulers " ordained of 
God," such great men as Rosseau, Paine, Voltaire, Franklin, Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Lincoln, and hosts like them, that have lived among 
Christians in all history, have always maintained and proved that expe- 
diency, or the greatest good of the greatest number, was the criterion of 
both moral and social rights, and that to determine what tends to that 
desired result, an equal chance for the exercise of voice, and) will must 
be given to every member of society. Human democracy as against 
divine despotism is the required remedy for political inequalities, and 
as to the remedy for social inequalities, these rejectors of sham or 
human revelation, as they all consider the word of God, so called to be, 
deny emphatically that servants ought to submit themselves to masters, 
or that men, no matter how situated, are to be obliged as a self-made 









The Kind of Scripture Skeptics Make. 231 

apostle directs, to abide in the calling in which they are called, or be 
content with such things as they have, and be resigned to the condition 
and circumstances in which Providence (which is another name for God) 
has placed them. Such directions these great men, and others like them, 
above alluded to, regard as mere human inspiration, and in reply to all 
such instruction, they make some scripture, and put it into practice, in 
which they take issue with any inspired apostle or any priest who 
upholds and teaches as divine wisdom such abominable trash, and 
regard the mission of every man who has the ordinary gift of reason to 
just do the reverse of all this. To fan the flame of discontent, which is 
a holy flame, for from it and it alone springs all improvement. To 
teach men that no ills are ordained of any God, but are simply the 
results of human ignorance, and the lack of control over natural forces, 
that are all independent of human direction. That it is labor, and not 
prayer, knowledge, not faith, that will dispel ignorance, and give the 
mastery over such evil as is the result of ignorance. And it has always 
been,and now is, such unbelievers as these, and such independent think- 
ers as have always stood aloof or outside of any church, that have 
directed national affairs, and have plainly pointed out that the prevailing 
system of trade, the competition and scramble for individual gain, is 
directly opposed to that principle of thorough reciprocity embodied in 
the golden rule, which directs men to do to others as they require others 
to do by them, which has always been inculcated by every moralist as 
being the foundation of justice and equity between man, long before any 
Christ or even Jew existed, and pretends to have been first discovered 
and promulgated in the Christian system. 

It is not only useless, but a great moral injustice, to teach or preach 
any such rubbish as is contained in that bundle of absurd teachings 
called by Christians the sermon on the mount, when the very existence 
of all human society depends upon the constant violation of such absurd 
precepts, and Christianity, as it is taught, practiced and administered, 
and on which society in every Christian land is founded, is directly con- 
trary and also directly destructive to human welfare, and everyway a 
damage and expensive burden and clog to human advancement; but it 
affords to some individuals an imaginary protection and comfort, and 
to many the means of securing an income to enable them to maintain a 
numerous family in extravagance and luxury, and give nothing valu- 
able in return; and it is still more unjust and untrue to give religion of 
any kind any credit for its influence in raising humanity out of a savage 
state, for the truth is that religion, literature and government are nothing 
but the products of civilization, and the progress of civilization varies in 
the same ratio as skepticism or the disposition to doubt or investigate, 



232 The Skeptic's Defense. 

and conversely as credulity, or the receptive spirit, developes in man a 
disposition to maintain and defend, as well as to assert, without any 
more than the most superficial examination, beliefs long established, 
and which have become firmly established by mere practice, and hence 
iii dividual efforts of great men are insignificant, in any age, in the great 
mass of human affairs. 

They say I am an atheist. Why? Because I do not believe in an 
orthodox God. What is an orthodox God? It is a God in three parts, 
one of which is the Holy Ghost, whom, if you should speak against,even 
in ignorance or passion, there is to be no forgiveness to the end of time 
not only, but of eternity also. This great impracticable of the trinity! 
Not one word, or even a thought, against this third part of a God, of 
you are forever outside of hope. The God who made us out of nothing, 
and then graciously endowed us with immortality in an endless hell of 
torment. The God who died to save the elect. The God whose soul never 
warms towards one of his children who has unwillingly insulted him. Am 
I an atheist because I abhor this tirade of conceit, infinite anger, infinite 
injustice? Modern thought has been brought into a useless confusion 
about a triple godhead. Therefore one had quite as well be an atheist 
as a Christian poly-theist, because the Christian church for the first fif- 
teen hundred years of its existence was nothing better than a charnel 
house of murder and torture, and it is this set of conceited priests and 
bigoted fanatics that called me an atheist, because I have a conception of 
God differing from theirs, and they are in a majority; therefore I must 
submit to the unpopular odium which the word atheist implies in an 
orthodox community, to such an extent that my dkth in a civil court 
will count for nothing, or in fact I will not be allowed to testify. The 
God of the atheist is simply nature, and by nature we mean not only 
stars and suns, trees, flowers, mountains and oceans, and the laws of a 
material universe, but human nature also, for man and man's hopes, 
aspirations, convictions and attainments are all natural. The facts and 
laws of mind and the facts and laws of matter come within the domain 
and law of science, so that there is a science of mind as well as of matter, 
and hence gross minds get by false instruction into gross ways of under- 
standing nature, and for such reasons primitive tribes of men, under the 
pinch of war, poverty and unhealthy climate, became degraded, and 
remained ignorant, and degraded their religion to meet their degraded 
state. The first men whose notions about God, first the Jew, then the 
Christian, hears from, who had any notion about God that was definite 
enough to be recorded, was Abraham, and some very celebrated old 
Egyptians, who both took such notions from the Brahmins, who in 
turn took theirs from the Buddhist, and they went to a remote past to 



Revealed and Natural Religion Compared. 233 

get such notions as they had, beyond our ability to penetrate. Some 
of their ideas were grand, and good enough for men of the present, for 
they called their God, Father, and they hated idolatry, and looked 
upwards, and had many noble aspirations. Theirs was the religion of 
nature, not indeed complete at the outset, any more than a complete lan- 
guage or comprehensive understanding of nature was had by primitive 
man, but at the outset man comprehended nature with his brains or 
intellect, and he thought and felt according to his brain power, or its 
capacity, and man has always since done the same; and so when tribes 
of primitive men went forward and upward in the scale of life and com- 
fort, they became gradually more intelligent, so that in a long period of 
time some among these tribes became strong and wise enough to count 
ten, and to comprehend that twice one is two, and these became the 
guide ori priest of the others who had not yet reached so advanced a 
stage in intelligence, and the supernatural was invented by him, so 
that he could hold in subjection the multitude. 

Lying underneath all so called revealed religions are certain natural 
elements, and hence the supernatural at the outset, and in a certain ratio 
ever since, is only an ambition to sustain our crude notions by high 
unquestionable authority. 'All that was implied originally by inspira- 
tion was simply that some men, as those above alluded to, who were so 
far in advance of their associates, that they were regarded as so high 
souled that they actually did talk with God. None of these individuals 
themselves ever claimed that they talked with deity, or that they derived 
actual truth or absolute truth from the infinite being, but these high per- 
sons were afterwards exalted by stupid souls into beings to whom God 
miraculously revealed both himself and his will, through direct personal 
contact, instead of through nature, or a knowledge of nature's laws, 
which was reserved or withheld to enable man to in the future arrive at 
a condition of development, when his capacity would enable him to dis- 
cover and apply them, and thus be able to find in nature itself an explan- 
ation of all phenomena heretofore ascribed to the supernatural; and 
hence the religion of nature, or natural religion, teaches the intelligent 
Chinaman what she teaches to the same grade of intelligence, through 
scientific and other discovery, the Patagonian, the Greek, or the Eng- 
lishman, and is the same that all men get when they, by the eye of 
science, look over the earth, the ocean, or the starry heavens, so that 
when men anywhere inquire what natural religion is, we reply: It is 
what is revealed by matter outside of us, by science, and when you com- 
pare men anywhere who are instructed by the scientific method, you find 
exact uniformity, which is what you never find in any two individuals 
anywhere who only are instructed in revealed religion, and what uni- 



234 The Skeptic's Defense. 

formity there seems to be is only what is compulsory by outside force. 
In mathematics all men everywhere, when they have enough intelli- 
gence to comprehend so simple or self-evident a problem, agree that 
twice one is two, and that the whole is greater than a part. Some 
savages are not able yet to comprehend even this simple computation, 
and we therefore regard them as de-humanized. Then comes the knowl- 
edge instinctively, without any instruction, that there is a moral law, or a 
definition of right and wrong, for obligation comes necessarily from 
existence, so man ought to avoid certain deeds, or in other words, men 
ought to do to others as they require others to do by them; and this 
discovery was made, adopted and recorded, thousands of years before 
the Jews ever originated, and hence all languages give us right instinct- 
ive axioms of living, and they never were revelations, nor were deca- 
logues ever written by the literal finger of God on tables of stone, but 
they are translations from an old manuscript called human experience; 
and the Lord's prayer, in all its clauses, had been in use many thousand 
years before the pretended advent of Jesus Christ, in the vedas of the 
Hindoos; the golden rule was taught by Confucius five hundred years 
before Christ, and he received it from his predecessors, and it was 
reasserted by Hillel, one hundred years before Christ, and threfore it 
was not supernatural, but natural. 

There is not a thought that takes hold upon modern life and saves men, 
that has not been used by all moralists or uplookers by the dozen in all 
countries and in all eras, and if you were to sift and examine thoroughly 
any religion you will find that the only original thing about it, or the 
only thing not natural, to be its theology and its ceremonials. All of 
its morals, its virtues, which make it of any real value, is the teachings of 
science, which reveal the world to man, and hence if anything at all per- 
taining to it is revealed, it is its supernatural features, such as man's 
original purity and holiness, his present original sin or pollution, the 
trintiy of the godhead, the origin of worlds, the atonement by bloodshed 
of an innocent victim, and then in addition to such as these a schedule 
of prayers, sacrifices, wasrnngs, kneelings, fastings and such like useless 
ceremonies. These when added to natural morality make the subdi- 
visions which are often elevated to the front rank, and make the 
Hebrew religion, the Chinese religion, the Mahometan religion, and the 
Christian religion, whereas these various religions are one, except in 
these superadded and these peculiar notions, which no one can attempt 
to prove are of any value,and pretend they were revealed to be necessary 
and valuable, by supernatural or superior beings. The Christian tells 
you that God did reveal in old times, to certain holy men, certain facts 
which he did not or could not reveal to all, men through or by nature; 



Comparison of Science with Religion. 235 

yet all men are to be vastly affected by these very half or specially 
revealed truths. 

The religion of nature every man gets according to the measure of 
his ability and need. The supernatural no man gets except by chance 
of locality. What a farce and absurdity ! The battling and quarreling 
has been about or between professed revelations, so you must see that 
the pious murdering has all been done by supernaturalism, and the deg- 
radation of manhood to the level of the monkey has not been done by 
natural religion, but in the name of certain facts or professed facts above 
nature. Science gets at the facts in nature by long, laborious, careful 
examination, with microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes and other 
appliances, to help us to penetrate into the distant domain of nature, and 
thus establish truths, while theologians, without any appliances, merely 
speculate, and a hundred or a thousand stupid monks will gather around 
a miserable table, and gnaw a naked bone and eat a crust, to merely 
preserve life, and then contradict and persecute science and refer all 
questions to supernatural revelation. This is child science, such as the 
savage has, who is only a full grown child^ and his science only super- 
stition. The sun is his god, and the dead heroes go to the stars, and 
the gods go to war. This is the only kind of science both the priest 
and his dupes are satisfied with. Their brains are lacking in the cell 
development, and are in a mass, so no blood circulates more than in 
so much clay, and he consequently is too indolent to think, much less 
investigate, and yet he is arbitrary and confident, domineering and 
superstitious, blood thirsty and revengeful, to the last degree. 

The difference between this class of minds, and the culture of the 
schools of these enlightened times, is expressed in two words, under- 
standing and ignorance. Understanding, or standing under, means to 
get right down under a proposition or subject, pry it up, so you can 
investigate every side of it; whereas, ignorance only ignores, or refuses 
to even look at one side of any question. Science says, three times one 
are three; but revelation instructs the lazy priest, and he too lazy to 
investigate, says to the dupe, three is one only. Rationalism is by the 
priest everywhere denounced as the setting up reason against authority, 
or man's reason in place of God's word. Natural religion is sneered at 
as a crude affair, fit only for savages. But, on the contrary, the natural 
religion of to-day is that religion and theology which comes from the 
high broad grasp of nature, given man by this age of natural scientific 
investigation, and comes from those scientific investigators, who under- 
stand best the realm above us and the realm within us. 

Natural religion, at the outset of human conceptions, was a crude 
and imperfect groping in the dark, to find a cause for observed effects, 



236 The Skeptic's Defense. 

and was only possible to find any individual able to so much as invent 
so very satisfactory and plausible an explanation of observed phenom- 
enon as the supernatural explanation, given to the masses by the most 
gifted of the tribe, more liberally endowed with the right kind of talent 
to impress himself upon his associates sufficient to secure their confi- 
dence, when he could impose such specious false reasons as he pleased, 
and hence the natural religion of our day is the summary or the embodi- 
ment of all the research of ancient as well as modern times, for natural 
religion, like all other ethical questions, is progressive, and keeps up 
with the times, and man, as he becomes enlightened by science, gathers 
from nature more and more of truth, and his experience grows richer 
and more abundant as he thus gathers. In former times,when one thought 
about the religion of nature, he only thought of a savage worshipping 
a fetich or myth, but in modern times one thinks of a Humbodlt or a 
Huxley in his chemical laboratory, experimenting with fifty chemicals, 
to determine or discover some remedy or metal, to add a useful result, 
to improve human conditions and advance human intelligence; also of 
a Faraday, lecturing on a candle, to show the manner by which light is 
produced; of an Agassiz, catching and dissecting fishes, to teach com- 
parative anatomy; so that natural religion of to-day means what the 
aggregate of the most enlightened reason discovers or reads in nature, 
and therefore when nature is fully understood, and in the ratio in which 
it is comprehended, by both the advanced scientist and his pupils, it 
includes God and his laws, and conscience, reason, and man. The most 
advanced naturalist modestly admits that he has only just begun to find 
out facts and laws, and the religion which pertains to facts and laws, 
but the impudent supernaturalist says that God did, at some definite 
time, in the remote past, make known his will in full, or the whole of it, 
to certain men, by means of instructing these men to write certain books, 
and therefore it is never to be either disputed or amended, because it is 
in this book. The naturalist says, I know that God is still speaking, and 
always will speak, through nature, and that his last word will be as full 
of instruction as his first was. The supernaturalist says, your whole 
duty is to read and obey the revealed will. The naturalist says, the 
sublimest duty of man is to listen and remain silent, while the stars are 
singing and human souls hoping. The supernaturalist says, your soul 
can only be saved by believing in this book, which contains many such 
absurdities, which, if found in any other book, and then believed in, 
would expose the one who should believe it to be considered a mere 
idiot. The naturalist says, what is inherently absurd and impossible, 
cannot be made reasonable and possible, though God should assert it. 
Can you answer the question. What is to be the religion of the distant 



Who the Persecutors of Skeptics Are. 237 

future? Is it to be your sect or mine, Catholicism, Protestantism, 
Christianity, Mahometanism, Judaism, or is it to be a growth or expan- 
sion of natural religion, without any mixture of supernaturalism or 
revealed dogmatic theology. It surely will then be tested by the light of 
nature, or either be retained or rejected, as it shall endure the light, and 
then all stories that are only a bit of historical statement out of Hindoo 
or Hebrew archives, will be tested as history, and no man thought the 
worse for not believing in their divine origin; and the religion of the 
future will then be emancipated from the obligation of giving either 
sanction or credence to such divine performances as are recorded in 
the sacred books of any form of supernaturalism. There is to-day in 
Christendom more natural religionists than supernaturalists. Almost 
all the great names must be struck off the church rolls, and the reason is 
because they are natural religionists, for it already appears evident to all 
unprejudiced thinking persons that there is a tendency in the head theo- 
logical fountains towards a reconstruction or fusion of all religious 
bodies, at least such as claim to be Christian, for it is rare to find a 
Protestant now who will not admit a Catholic church is a portion of the 
Christian church, and Catholic bishops do not deny in private that you 
and I, who are not Catholics, have very good tickets for Paradise, and 
all Catholic bishops and priests in this land of liberty and intelligence 
are vastly more Protestants than John Calvin and Martin Luther were 
in Europe, where the exercise of any degree of free thought was sternly 
met by anathema and the application of torture. The bishops of the 
Catholic church, or any other, have to be careful in this country how 
they oppose or limit individual liberty of the churches, for the people 
are no longer like a flock of sheep, to be driven or even cared for by a 
shepherd, however nice, and they are beginning to object to being robbed 
of their fleece to such an extent as the shepherds have always insisted on 
doing. 

The religion, then, of the future, will be no religion at all, as such, 
or if you mean by the church an exponent of a supernatural God, for a 
church of any kind always was and always will be intolerant. Not 
Catholicism, or Protestantism, but Churchism has done all the perse- 
cuting; don't blind yourself so far as to believe none but the Catholics 
persecute. Protestants persecute, for Calvin burned those who 
did not agree with him. Puritans persecuted the Baptists, and drove 
them into ignominious exile, and every local church now excommuni- 
cates you or me, which is the same in its results as giving you over to 
the devil, which means damn you for all eternity, unless you yield, and 
ministers are forbidden to preach who will not uphold and defend such 
diabolism, for, as the church holds God's word, it is obliged to sternly 
uphold and defend it. 



238 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Unless all signs are deceptive, we are coming to an age when at any 
rate no church authority can burn, hang or shoot us, for learning, and to 
an age when no man will care a fig whether the priest damns him eter- 
nally or not, and when each man can think and express himself as he 
likes, and the last thing to be thought of will bei to make him conform 
his beliefs to his neighbors ; we shall also have a growing disregard for 
rewards and punishments, and then the future life, if we are convinced 
there is such a life, will seem only a continuation of this life, and the 
atonement, with the whole plan of salvation, will then be forgotten. A 
good deal of honor must be granted to our ancestors of the modern 
period, for having some sort of crude notions of universal and compul- 
sory education, but we can realize that their plans were wild and imper- 
fect in many ways; for one thing, they separated intellectual from moral 
education, which should go together, giving the latter over to the Sun- 
day-school teachers, who for the greater part are a breed of ninnies of 
the goody wouldy sort, too green and limp to know either what to do or 
how to do it, and who for the most part occupied the time set apart for 
this exercise in telling yarns about gods, hells, heavens, and other super- 
natural nonsense, because they knew nothing about natural things. 
The schools of enlightenment of the future will thoroughly educate every 
faculty and every power of the boy or girl, and by that process society 
will get well rounded characters for citizens. The teacher will then 
endeavor to understand the capacities and requirements of each pupil, 
and use just what means he finds best to bring each one committed to 
his care to his best ability; he will recognize that bodies and minds are 
one, and that the period of school life is only a few of the growing years. 

Now, the religious education or training of any child is to his mind 
what any blemish or physical deformity is to his body, and no parent 
has any moral right to perpetrate any physical injury to his' child, such 
as to destroy one eye, or deprive him of any member of his body, and 
in addition to the moral wrong, this mutilation is forbidden by the state, 
and the offender would be punished in proportion to the severity of the 
offence, if he does any such an unlawful act, and no justification would 
be allowed on account of the relationship of a parent; but the state so 
far has never interfered when the parent or the priest causes any amount 
of mental superstitious deformity, by means of or through religious 
education or instruction, for what is implied in a religious education but 
cramping, fettering and poisoning the immature mind with dogmas 
and superstitious folly, and this is done before he is able to perceive the 
wrong and outrage that has thus been done him, and very few compara- 
tively ever recover from the evil done them in early life, hence they 
should be protected and spared this struggle that is thus caused, for no 



Some Negative Beliefs of the Author. 239 

one, not even a parent, has any right to make this struggle necessary, 
for every child is born free, and there is neither sense or decency in 
enslaving his mind, and then leaving him the choice to either break his 
fetters or wear them through life. If it can be proved that any religion 
is a natural aspiration or need of any mature human being, he may be 
safely trusted to receive and embrace it in some form when he is devel- 
oped enough to know what he is doing, but, if it is not natural, what 
greater wrong can you perpetrate than to take him in his defenceless 
years, and instill a deadly poison into his unsuspecting, impressible 
nature. When a parent asks me, have I not a right to train my child 
as I please? I reply, a thousand times, "No!" You may leave your 
children, if you will, your material wealth, and you may leave them, if 
you can, the legacy of a stainless character and reputation for integrity, 
but your opinions, either of religion or other superstitions, you would 
be a wretch and a monster to force such notions on them, merely 
because you have nursed and fondled them all your life, and have never 
been aware either of their false nature or their pernicious effects, for 
every religion is disfigured and wholly constructed of dogmas and super- 
stition, and is both unfit and unworthy of transmission to posterity, the 
same as a diseased constitution would be, if done willfully. 

Lest any reader of the foregoing writings may be in doubt as to the 
precise belief or unbelief of the writer, I will record in this place a sort of 
a negative creed, saying what I do not believe, instead of saying, as 
others do, what they do believe. I do not believe in any future life 
after the present life is concluded. I do* not believe there ever was, or 
is, or ever will be, any God, either personal or ideal, or any devil, per- 
sonal or ideal, or any angel, either good or bad. I do not believe there 
is, or ever was, or ever will be, any positive proof that any Jesus Christ, 
such as the gospels assert lived and was crucified on Calvary, ever lived 
or died, and hence I do not believe any such woman as the gospels 
describe the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, to have been, ever 
lived, or ever was impregnated by the Holy Ghost; and I do not believe 
in any holy or other ghost, or any other supernatural being or thing. I 
do not believe the Christian church has ever done as much good as it 
has evil, or that it has ever made a man out of a man, or a woman out of 
a woman. »I do not believe that the Christian church, as a whole, is 
anything but a damnable autocracy, having for its only aim the absorp- 
tion of all the worldly wealth and influence it possibly can, by the holy 
process of ecclesiastical robbery and murder, under the false pretext of 
caring for the souls of men, with reference to a future life, hampering 
and sneering at philosophy, science, and the development of body, mind, 
heart and soul, being both selfish and egotistical, also arbitrary, and 



240 The Skeptic's Defense. 

the direct opposite of what it pretends to be; and that its priests and 
teachers are only so many absolute impostors, and the pitiable emblems 
of ignorance and hypocrisy, and incapable of receiving or of teaching 
truth, or any important scientific or other valuable subject; and these 
things, I not only do not believe, but I am prepared to also prove; and 
further I say not at present on that subject, but this I say, that any priest 
or minister must support and defend the particular superstitions of 
which he is the representative, or his occupation is gone, therefore he 
never intentionally forfeits his claim to his salary, which means his bread 
and butter, but the mass of men are uninfluenced by such temptations. 
It is a humiliating fact that when any very extremely pious and exem- 
plary Christian gets any high and responsible civil office, either by polit- 
ical intrigue or shrewd management, he goes out of his way to make 
his extreme pity conspicuous, especially on every public occasion, with a 
view of better securing, through the religious sentiment of the commun- 
ity, a continuation of his term, if his office had to depend on an election 
by the people. For the first time in the history of this country, which 
has embraced more than one hundred years, we have had the misfortune 
to have had for the last four years a Presbyterian President, but fortun- 
ately his term soon closes, and his place is to be filled again as it always 
before was, by an indifferent scoffer at religion. This Presbyterian 
President has left on record the most silly proclamations, in reference to 
the observance of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of 
America by Columbus, which occurred a few days since, in which the 
President advised the people to go to church on that day, and express 
their gratitude to Divine Providence, which is a modified name for the 
orthodox Christian's God, for the devout faith of that Roman Catholic 
pirate, Columbus, which enabled him to persevere so as to discover 
America, and for the divine guidance which has directed our history, 
and so abundantly blessed our people. Any man of sufficient mental 
ability to reach so high and honorable an office as President of the 
United States' of America, ought to know that Divine Providence, or 
the Christian's Providence, had nothing whatever to do with the discov- 
ery of this continent, one way or another, for if the President had ever 
read history he would know that the whole credit was due to the 
Mahometan's God, " Allah," for it was the "followers of the false prophet, 
the ancient Arabians, who advanced the sciences of mathematics and 
astronomy to the point of determining the shape of the earth, and it 
was from the writings of Arabian astronomers and philosophers that 
the mariners of Genoa conceived the idea that a ship sailing westward 
would circumnavigate the globe, and arrive finally at the East Indies. 
While the Mahometan great mathematician and astronomer/' Aver- 



A Christian President Criticised. 241 

roes," a noted Moor of Cordova, was busy in the twelfth century elabor- 
ating his theories, and in thus advancing human knowledge,, so as to 
make the idea of circumnavigating the globe possible, so as to admit of 
any reasonable prospect of success, the most eminent Christians were so 
benighted and bigoted as to care for nothing but to give all their energies 
to the worship and adoration of images^ the absurd doctrines of tran- 
substantiation, the papal infallibility, shrine cures, miracles, and such 
like tomfoolery and nonsense, and because the heathen Chinee had, 
many thousand years before this time, discovered the mariner's compass, 
and had passed its discovery along to the Arabians, and they had per- 
fected it and passed it along to the ignorant and benighted Christian, 
and by such means the Christian navigators and pirates, who had been 
the most infamous set of miserable wretches that have ever lived, felt suf- 
ficient courage, at least one of this gang of pirates did, to trust himself 
out of sight of land ; and after this noted pirate, Columbus, had studied 
these writings of Averroes, and had become convinced that they were 
founded on demonstrated, true science, he attempted to demonstrate 
this knowledge to the stupid Christian authorities, without whose 
sanction nothing like this could be attempted, and who might have been 
supposed to have the ear and favor of their God, or our divine provi- 
dence; they unanimously condemned his schemes, and thwarted for 
many years all his efforts to interest powerful civil rulers and capitalists to 
aid him, by pointing out to them the irreligious tendency and the hereti- 
cal origin of his theory, offering as proof of this the Hebrew Pentateuch, 
the Psalms of David, the prophecies, the gospels, the epistles, and the 
writings of the holy fathers of the church, such as St. Chrysostom, St. 
Augustine, St Jerome, and many other such noodles; and besides all 
this, Columbus never had a spark of devout or any other faith, for all he 
thought of was to be able to land a cargo of commodities in the East 
Indies, without breaking bulk, and he always lived in the belief, after he 
had found land, that it was the India he was in search of, and he died 
before his error was discovered; and this is all the divine guidance or 
devout faith Columbus ever had, and for which we, the people, were 
advised to give God thanks in all the churches, four hundred years after 
the event. 

Such things as the above are not taught in the churches, or in the 
Sunday-schools, so our flat skulled Presbyterian president had never 
heard of it, but he ought to know that it is none of his business to issue 
religious proclamations, either for thanksgiving day or for any other 
purpose, for he holds only a civil and not a religious office, and he also 
ought to know that the people may, and very likely do, have other Gods 
than his, which they prefer to worship, or may be they have none at all. 



242 The Skeptic's Defense. 

It must not be inferred from the above remarks, criticizing the action 
of our president, that he did not act from a sense of duty, for it is char- 
itable to suppose from his stand point he meant well, and that therefore 
he felt the better for having done it, but he only acted from a miscon- 
ception of duty, and actually supposed his conscience required him to 
give expression to his own sense of obligation, to set a suitable example ; 
but the fact remains that Christians in general, in spite of their boasting 
talk of meekness and loving enemies, returning good for evil, enduring 
patiently persecution, and such like traits, prove in their conduct at 
every turn to be disagreeable, spiteful, petty, and needlessly angry with 
any one who differs with the majority, because thy say he ought to be 
decent enough not to dispute them, so that we skeptics must try to for- 
give them, for they don't know any better, and now even some noted 
Christians are turning to common sense, and it becomes a second nature 
for some enthusiasts, a sort of frenzy, to scream aloud for Jesus, under 
a pretended disinterested anxiety for the welfare in the next, or future 
life, of the souls of their fellow mortals, not for a moment as much as 
having the faintest conception of what the soul of man is. The soul of 
man is entirely dependent for its very existence, as well as for its ability 
to influence the life and conduct of each individual, in proportion as the 
material part or the body of such individual is healthy or unhealthy, 
well or ill nourished with suitable food and proper exercise, for the con- 
dition of the soul or mind depends upon the condition of the animal 
machinery of the body, which is the home or residence of the soul. If 
the brain becomes diseased, the thinking faculty is destorted. If the 
brain is weak or uninstructed, the thoughts are feeble. If the brain is 
finely educated, the thoughts become rational. If the brain is stimu- 
lated, the thoughts are active. So that man, his body and soul alike, is 
a mere machine, and a very complicated one, and is, as far as the soul is 
concerned, the product of the animal economy; and the sole aim of the 
theological charlatans called priests, of all grades and varieties, is to 
extract as large fees as possible from credulous, stupid people, by fraud 
and pompous humbug, and for that diabolical purpose, and no other, 
they have contrived and introduced the preaching of the gospel, which 
is full of things incredible and impossible, to which reason has an aver- 
sion, so that it refuses to sanction or tolerate it, and so makes it impos- 
sible for any man of sense to conceive or admit its truth. Whoever 
dares to say to me, God has spoken to any man, is criminal, in my esti- 
mation. What stuff! Would God, the father of all, talk with any indi- 
vidual? A God to walk! A God to talk! A God to write laws on a 
stone with his fingers, in private, on a little mountain in Arabia! A 
God to fight battles! A God to become man, and then this God-man 



Christian Dogmas Derived from Plato. 243 

to die on a cross ! Such ideas and ridiculous nonsense are only worthy 
of fools and knaves, and to invent them is the last damnable degree of 
rascality, and to believe them is the extreme of brutalized stupidity ; and 
therefore, to substitute* for all this rubbish a God, wise, powerful and 
just, for these astounding frauds, is the extreme of wisdom, because the 
false dogmas of the priests has caused to die in fearful torments more 
than ten millions of good Christians, to say nothing of the pagans, and 
Jews, and Mahometans, that three immense crusades, seven times 
repeated, of Christian armies of vast numbers of fanatics, who tried in 
vain to recover the sacred shrines about the city of Jerusalem. And as a 
contrast for all this fearful, useless, insane slaughter, for nothing of the 
least value or importance, the moral system, which embraces everything 
of any value to humanity, has not as much as caused one slight scratch 
on the person of any of its votaries since time began, and when we con- 
sider and can prove that all the doctrines and opinions of these first 
Christian impostors were taken from Plato, who lived, flourished, wrote 
and died five hundred years before this era, such as the doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul, which the Jews never as much as dreamed of, 
also the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven, which is so often introduced 
in the gospels, is in the writings of Plato, and so is the doctrine of the 
bodily resurrection also found fully taught by Plato ; therefore, I know 
not and I believe not that Jesus Christ or any other person ever as much 
as thought seriously of dying for such a worthless, contemptible set of 
scoundrels as the greater part of the human race is composed of, and the 
bugbear which the priests all continually hold up before their ignorant 
dupes, to work upon their fears for the purpose of furthering their own 
unholy influence over them, so as to be able to rob them without sus- 
picion. The death of the body, is no more felt by any person at the last 
moment than is a sleep, and so they who otherwise announced it are the 
enemies of the human race in all time. 

Every imposition, and more particularly those connected with 
religion, when such is suspected to be the case, is obliged to defend its 
position from the attacks of its opponents, and invent plausible reasons 
why this particular system is superior to its rivals; accordingly, there 
has always been in every kind of religious fraud and imposition a set of 
men, more capable than their associates, set apart, and who devoted all 
their time and energies to the examination and criticism of the writings 
of those who had, in previous times, invented and introduced such 
forms of religious beliefs, and founded them upon written documents, 
which they regarded sacred, and which had been added to from time to 
time by other inventors or discoverers, and thus increased the quantity 
and variety of such writings, and which were mostly in the obscure form 



244 The Skeptic's Defense. 

of legend, of narrative, allegory, fiction, history, and prophetic devo- 
tional, which to the averag'e reader were in seeming conflict, and in 
some degree contradictory, and which, by reason of a claim to be 
divinely inspired, forbid any suspicion of their being other than strictly 
true, accordingly they must be explained and harmonized by the critical 
study of these men, who had been authorized to undertake this work. 
These men, so appointed, received the name of commentators, and their 
extensive researches and laborious achievements have enabled the com- 
mon people to avail themselves of the labors of these men, and by such 
means have enabled a vile set of drones, and men of inferior minds, 
and acquirements, to seem to their dupes to be very able and profound 
thinkers. These commentators have always been men of peculiar tem- 
perament, conceited, devout and industrious to elucidate and formulate 
the one idea to which their whole energies have long been devoted, and 
very few of their original works are now extant, and these are never 
accessible to any but theological scholars. An examination of any of 
these original works discloses wonderful ingenuity to explain and 
interpret obscure phrases, harmonize conflicting and contradictory 
passages, and make the whole at least appear to be consistent with both 
reason and common sense. By such means the Bible of the Christian 
has been defended, and thus far saved from destruction, annihilation and 
oblivion, but none of these researches, or all of them, have enabled those 
who made them to be bold and confident enough to dare to assert, with 
any more certainty than a bare probability, either who wrote these sev- 
eral fragments, or books, or where or when they were written, but these 
commentators agree in considering these writers as both holy men and 
divinely inspired, or assisted and instructed, to write unerringly, conse- 
quently truthfully. Later commentators have been distracted and 
divided, so that in order to maintain and defend their right to a separate 
organization, such as Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and others, it 
has been considered by their managers expedient for each to have their 
own Bible revisers, their own Bible society, and their own commen- 
taries, and these uphold, explain and defend each their own peculiarities, 
and assail each other, and so divide and weaken the whole body of 
Christians that they are assailable, and incapable of successful defence 
from their numerous adversaries, the great mass of unbelievers, who 
thus have great advantage, and will eventually either compel an intimate 
union for self defence, or an entire overthrow of the whole fabric of 
imposition and deception. 

The priests never encourage the ignorant to read the Bible, and they 
themselves never read in public any of the smut or scandalous conduct 
of its great heroes, such as Moses, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul, and 



How the Gospels Describe Their Christ. 245 

such like, but parade and magnify what few virtues they manifested, and 
leave the impression they had no vices, and so they are referred to and 
held up for examples worthy of imitation. But a few men, in compari- 
son to the whole mass, have escaped from the contaminating influence 
of both priests and commentators, and have rid themselves of super- 
stitious awe, and a reverence inspired by false early instruction, so that 
they can read the Bible as they read all other books, by the light of rea- 
son and an enlightened common sense. Such men know, and so declare, 
that the authors of the new testament separate books not only contra- 
dict each other, but, taken as a whole, they also contradict the feeble 
light of our reason, which is all the light we have by which to judge of 
the truth, or consistency of any proposition. 

As to the truth of Christianity, the most that can be discovered by 
reading the gospels is, that somebody says there once was a man, some 
where, some time, whose name was Jesus, and to distinguish him from 
other Jews of that name, they havei added, " of Nazareth," and that he 
gained over to his cause a few ignorant poor adherents, and that he was 
a Jew, but that he always opposed the Jews, and publicly insulted the 
priests and rulers of his day and country, and made himself so obnox- 
ious that they, after enduring his abuse, some say three years and others 
say only one year, the Jews thus insulted and vilified by him caused his 
death by crucifixion, and that afterwards his adherents avenged them- 
selves by falsely proclaiming everywhere that God had raised him from 
the dead, and separated themselves entirely from the other Jews, so that 
it was not a mere schism, but a new sect, that fought and endeavored to 
destroy all others, having all the obstinacy of Jews, all the enthusiasm of 
pagans, and all the impudence of both combined. They spread them- 
selves, or were soon driven by their neighbors, who could not tolerate 
them, throughout the whole Roman Empire, in which, owing to the 
diversity of nations, every form of religion was well received, and tol- 
erated by more than a hundred different races, which were all under the 
care and protection of the Romans. At first Christianity had the ability 
to attract from among these various tribes, people and tongues, only 
the poor and despised, because they were an association founded by 
obscurity and poverty, and hence could and did proclaim the equality of 
all men, in direct opposition and defiance of all the sects of the Jews, who 
were both aristocratic and exclusive ; but notwithstanding these humble 
pretences, the more it spread the more it degenerated, and finally disap- 
peared entirely, and the natural instinct of mankind resumed its sway 
over mankind. And then they acquired wealth, so that they, like Jews, 
became able, and really did, lend money to the father of the Roman 
Emperor, Constantine, and the metaphysical quarrels for many years 



246 The Skeptic's Defense. 

disturbed and distracted the whole Roman Empire, till Constantine 
put an end to this state of things by force, compelling- obedience to his 
mandates, and this is the end of Christianity, and the beginning of 
Romanism, that filled its place from that time to the present. When 
the Christians had thus been superseded and excluded from all dignity 
of the empire, they pursued commerce, as dissenters now do in all the 
countries of the world. At length Romanism was driven from the 
East, where it was born, by the Mahometans, and found refuge in the 
southwest of Europe, where it fortified and so strengthened itself there, 
that it inundated with blood every nation there, and their pontiffs 
there had for many hundred years both the favor of heaven and the fat- 
ness of the earth, while the Jewish founder of this vile sect, as they impu- 
dently claim Jesus Christ to have been, was born poor, and after giving 
Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, died poor, and the bride, the 
church, can now say, how little you resemble your husband, for you are 
rich and honorable, and he was poor and despised. 

Man's inhumanity to man, in all ages, and under all conditions and 
various forms of religious beliefs, has always, and does yet, cause count- 
less thousands to mourn, but, in some small return for this, is his 
humanity progressing by successive gradations, as his experience has 
demonstrated its desirability to be acknowledged, has reached its pres- 
ent attitude, and by that means alone has brought comfort and cheer 
to many thousands, who may well, and do, bless the spirit of the present 
age of progressive enlightenment. 

It has been the intention of the writer of the foregoing lines, which 
are in many respects somewhat imperfect, or incomplete, inasmuch as he 
has to some extent, both directly and indirectly, stated what he does not 
believe, as to such questions or subjects as those which are considered 
of a religious nature, before concluding these reflections, to also leave 
on record at least one thing, or important subject, which he does believe, 
and which he considers as the one not only the most important, but the 
one which in fact covers the whole ground, so that all the others are only 
subordinate, and if true, or whether true or false, as long as it is not 
capable of demonstration, is yet satisfactory to any human being, it puts 
an end, as far as he is concerned to all anxiety and worry about a ques- 
tion, the solution to which all religions are inquiring, and none of them, 
or all of them together, are able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. 
I believe and know, that the present life of all animals, and of all that 
have ever lived, as well the human as every other, finishes and forever 
ends its career at death ; and therefore that faculty belonging in a greater 
or less degree to all animals, in proportion to its needs or requirements, 
which in the human animal is called soul, is extinct and forever annihil- 



Some Affirmative Beliefs of This Author. 247 

ated in every animal alike, the precise instant when the body dies, and 
that this faculty 1 called in the human, soul, but in every other animal, 
instinct, never had any other purposes in connection with a living body 
but to enable that body, whether human or any other, to fulfil its destiny 
of subsistence and propagation, while permitted by the laws of nature, 
for a longer or shorter period, to exist. It is accordingly evident that 
such a belief and knowledge disposes of all inferior or subordinate ones, 
such as the existence of any God to create, devil to destroy, heaven to 
strive for, hell to shun, salvation to seek, damnation to avoid, account- 
ability to fear, judgment to encounter, rewards to claim, punishments to 
evade, about which nothing has ever been known, or ever will, or can 
be, and about which the strongest faith can only give a mere faint, un- 
satisfactory hope, for a universal human desire for immortality is no evi- 
dence that such desire will ever be realized, any more than is the case 
with reference to unsatisfied desires of riches or honors, that animate all 
humanity, and stimulate all efforts to reach and realize such desire in the 
present life; and the unfounded hope to see and enjoy the society of 
departed friends, who have lived with us, and died before us, instead of 
being cultivated and encouraged, as it is done pre-eminently by the 
Christian form of religion, should be immediately and 'universally for- 
ever abandoned, for 1 it will no more be realized by the human animal 
than any other, for eternal extinction awaits all animals the instant death 
takes from it its life. 

If such a view seems abhorrent to any person, it only seems so by 
reason of previous false instruction, and no amount of priestly sophistry, 
of pretended revelation, of desire, of faith, or aspiration, can ever in the 
slightest degree change the fixed laws of nature with respect to life and 
death, for one includes and necessitates the other, and the humbug or 
infamous lie of all the priests in the universe, of any resurrection, or 
resuscitation of one species of dead animals, would include all species, 
and therefore is alike undesirable and impossible. The above conclu- 
sion has not been -reached by any other human being as far as this 
writer is aware, and has not been reached by him without much delib- 
eration and reflection, and when reached has imparted an amount of 
satisfaction not heretofore found in a long life of varied and sincere 
religious experience, for death is no longer a terror, or a future life an 
uncertainty, and the destiny of my soul any longer a question, and the 
conclusion can be stated that the Christian form of religion is like all 
others, nothing but an imposition and sham, and they one and all ought 
only to be hooted down and banished forever from the face of the earth. 
If there was anywhere to be found any proof that the Bible, on which 
the priests all found their rights to instruct the masses of the people, 



248 The Skeptic's Defense. 

any better or more reliable than the assertions of these priests, or a like 
set that have previously lived, that this Bible was inspired, or was writ- 
ten by men instructed by God, who directed and so guided them that 
they could not err, there might be some sense in listening to a set of 
men who pretend to not only consider the Bible a revelation from God, 
but also consider themselves competent, by reason of their devoting 
their whole energies in studying it, to understand its mysteries, and be 
able to explain them so as to be comprehended by those who hire them 
to do for them this work. 

The theologians who instruct and prepare the priests for their work, 
and after them the priests themselves prepared by them, illustrate and 
compare themselves to lawyers in secular or in worldly affairs,_who, by 
reason of devoting their whole time and energies to the study of human 
laws, are by such preparation rendered capable to manage an intricate 
case for their client, who because of their ability seeks their advice and 
assistance, for the reason that the client does not know the laws, not 
having devoted his time to the study of law. This is neither a just or a 
true comparison, for the reason that human laws, being invented and 
made by human beings, are not beyond the comprehension of other 
human beings, but the laws that govern the material universe, and their 
application to human needs or requirements, not being within the scope 
and comprehension of any human being, because he was not their 
author, makes it impossible, for one set of men more than another to 
either unfold or understand them. Science, in some of its fields of inves- 
tigations, by long and patient study and experiment, can faintly demon- 
strate, and partially, at least, understand, some of the most simple and 
obvious of nature's laws ; but the modesty of all scientists makes them 
admit that only the outlines of any science can be discovered, but in 
contrast with these the conceit and impudence of the priests is such that 
they brush science aside, as they would a spider web, and go beyond 
nature, into the supernatural, with an assurance that amounts to abso- 
lute certainty, and by the aid of the teachings of this pretended revela- 
tion, calculate and decide what is to be the destiny of all grades of 
humanity in a future life, when a moment's reflection on the part of an 
unbiased mind is only needed to see that this ability is only an inven- 
tion of the priesthood. 

After taking such extreme grounds as I have taken in all these pre- 
ceding pages, in reference to the reality of the Christ of the gospels, I 
felt obliged to inquire as to the truth of my theories respecting this 
question, of those theologians whose education and abilities seemed 
likely to qualify them to be able to give a satisfactory answer, and with 
that object in view, similar letters to these which are recorded, and 



The Gospels By Themselves Are No Evidence. 240 

which have not been preserved, had before these been sent to priests, as 
Rev. Henry H. Stebbins, of the Central Presbyterian Church; Rev. 
Myron Adams, of the Plymouth Church; Rev. Alfred J. Hutton, of St. 
Peter's Presbyterian Church; Rev. W. C. Gannett, of the Unitarian 
Church, and somd others, as the Rev. Max Landsberg, of the Jewish 
Church, or Synagogue, and Rev. D. W. Bull, of the Congregational 
Church, and all of these able theologians simply evaded giving any 
answer to the questions I asked them, and which they all admitted were 
to all men important, clearly proving that they were not able to give any 
definite answer, but they all appeared in their replies confused and sur- 
prised that any one not a Jew doubted or questioned the reality of the 
advent of Christ, or ever thought of raising such an absurd question, 
but they will all, as well as all the Christian theologians in the world, 
search in vain all the literature to be found outside of the Bible, to find 
any allusion to such a Christ as the Christian world has been made to 
believe has lived and been crucified, by no other evidence than that of 
the four gospels of the new testament, which taken alone, without any 
confirmation, is plainly no evidence at all, for the writers thereof had a 
direct object in view, of fraud and imposture, in writing this mess of 
absurdity, as Mahomet also had in writing the Koran, or as Joe Smith 
had in pretending to translate some writing he asserted he found on 
some golden leaves he dug out of the earth a few years ago, and with 
it started the Mormon imposition in our own day, and which we are 
all familiar with. Much dependence has been put to confirm these 
statements of the gospels on some stray prophecies, more especially 
those in the book said to be written by Isaiah, wherein nearly all of the 
fifty-first chapter, and many other detached fragments, have been so 
twisted and strained by the various Christian commentators, as to in 
some degree make them fit the gospel narratives, but it has been lately 
discovered by many able theologians, such as Professor Briggs, How- 
ard McQueary, Lyman Abbott, and many others, what the Jews have 
always known and have always asserted, that these pretended prophecies 
were never written by Isaiah, but have been forged or added to the orig- 
inal or genuine copies of the only Hebrew manuscripts in possession of 
the Jews, by some late translators and revisers, so that their forgeries 
may appear to fortify and strengthen the weak, untruthful and impos- 
sible stories of these gospels, and other new testament writings. Now 
that the lying pretence of the divine inspiration of the writers of the 
whole Bible is clearly discovered and made known by the modern or 
higher criticism of fearless able writers, and the further fact that the dis- 
coveries of modern science have demonstrated much of the contents of 
the Bible to be erroneous, in chronology, in geology, in astronomy, in 



250 The Skeptic's Defense. 

history , and in prophesy, as well as in all its moral precepts to be only 
copies of other ancient systems, the priests of all the various sects of 
Christians are contriving and earnestly hoping to find some means to, in 
part at least, harmonize the statements of the Bible with the demonstra- 
tions of science, well knowing that unless they can do this, which all 
skeptics know they cannot, the Bible, on which this whole fabric of 
imposition and fraud is founded, will be set aside as of no authority, and 
reduced to its proper level, as a mere literary production of a barbarous 
age and people, without ever having claimed any divine origin, or 
divine inspiration, by those who wrote the old testament, and only one 
short verse in the new testament, is all the authority any Christian ever 
had to suppose that any part of the Bible was divinely inspired. This 
one sentence relating to inspiration is claimed to have been written by 
that Jewish Apostate, Saul of Tarsus, who left the Jews and joined the 
Christians after causing the death, by torture of many Christians, and 
because his teacher, Gamaliel, refused him his daughter. in marriage, to 
spite the Jews joined the Christians, and with all his energy sought to 
destroy Judaism, without much success, and this authority is found in a 
private letter to an obscure individual without the remotest suspicion 
that any one but him would ever see such a foolish statement, but 
these early fanatics dragged this letter out from its obscurity, and gave 
it a place among a lot of other like rubbish in the authorized new testa- 
ment. This man's name was Timothy, and he calls him his son, dearly 
beloved, and, as Paul was never married, he must have been born out of 
wedlock, as many priests' sons are now. " Ail scripture is given by 
inspiration of God, and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, etc." The theologians of our days have become so ashamed of 
much that is written in the Bible that they have made a revision, and 
greatly modified many thousand absurdities, and among these is this 
sentence, in this second letter to Timothy, 3:16, modified into this form: 
" Every scripture inspired of God is profitable for," etc., leaving each 
reader to judge for himself whether all of it or none of it is so inspired, 
so of course those who have only a direct object to strengthen and per- 
petuate fraud, superstition and imposition, clamor long and loud for 
inspiration. These are the priests, for in consequence of such ideas, 
which have their roots and growth in an unhappy temperament, which 
temperament originates in a peevish humor, which humors are the off- 
spring of a disturbed imagination, the superstitious are constantly 
infected with terror, are the slaves to mistrust and unrest, the creatures 
of discontent, continually in a state of fearful alarm ; nature cannot have 
any charms for them; her countless beauties pass by unheeded; they do 
not participate in her cheerful scenes ; they look upon this world, so mar- 



What Unimaginable Results of Priestly Imposture. 251 

velous to the happy man, so good to the contented enthusiast, as a vale 
of tears, in which a vindicative fate has placed them, only to expiate 
crimes committed either by themselves or by their ancestors ; they con- 
sider themselves as sent here for no other purpose than to be the slaves 
of calamity, the sport of a capricious fortune ; that they are the children 
of sorrow, destined to undergo the severest trials, to the end that they 
may arrive everlastingly at death at a new experience, in which they 
shall be either eternally happy or miserable, according to their treatment, 
or conduct towards the priests of a being who holds their destiny in his 
hands. These dismal, foolish notions have been the source of all 
the irrational systems that have ever prevailed; they have given birth to 
the most revolting practices, currency and toleration to the most absurd 
customs. History abounds with the details of the most atrocious cruel- 
ties, under the imposing name of public worship, of every imaginable 
kind of imposition; nothing has been considered too fantastical or too 
abominable by the votaries or dupes of superstition, made so by their 
priests. Parents have at their behest or by their advice immolated their 
children in countless numbers; lovers have sacrificed the objects of 
their affection; friends have destroyed and hated each other; so that the 
most bloody disputes and sanguinary contests have been fomented ; the 
most interminable animosities have been engendered, wholly to gratify 
the whim of implacable priests, who by the most diabolical, crafty inven- 
tions have usurped an unholy influence over their people; to please 
blind zealots, who have never been able either to give fixity to their 
ideas, or to define their own foolishness ; idle dreamers, nourished with 
bile, intoxicated with theologic fury, whose melancholic dispositions 
disposes them to lewdness and debauchery; visionaries whose devious 
imaginations, heated with intemperate zeal, leads them to extreme fan- 
aticism; working mainly upon ignorance, whose foundation is credulity, 
have universally and incessantly disturbed the harmony of mankind, 
kindled the inextinguishable flame of discord, and in an almost uninter- 
rupted succession strewed the earth with the mangled carcasses of the 
multitudinous victims of mad brained error and false instruction ; and of 
these, so destroyed, their only crime has been their incapacity to dream 
according to the rules prescribed by these infuriated priestly maniacs, 
notwithstanding these have never been uniform, never assimilated in 
any two countries or periods, never borne the same intellectual features 
in any two ages of time, nor even had the united concurrence of the per- 
secuting contemporaries. 

It is then in the diversity of temperament arising from the variety 
of organization, in the contrariety of passions springing out of this 
miscellany, modified by the most opposite circumstances, that must be 



252 The Skeptic's Defense. 

sought the cause of the difference we find in the opinions of the theist, 
the skeptic, the enthusiast, the devotee, the superstitious of all denom- 
inations. They are all equally irrational, the dupes of their imagina- 
tions, the blind children of error, by reason of the false instruction of the 
priests. What one contemplates under a favorable point of view, the 
other never looks upon but the dark side; that which is the object of the 
most sedulous research to one set, is that which the other must seek to 
avoid as pernicious ; each insists he is right, and the scientist insists they 
are all wrong, for the reason that no one offers the least shadow of sub- 
stantive proof of what he asserts; each points out the great importance 
of his mission, yet cannot even agree with his colleagues in the priestly 
office, either upon the nature of their instructions, or the means to be 
adopted; it is thus whenever any man of set of men undertakes to set 
forth and make permanent a false supposition, for all the reasonings, 
however subtle, he makes on it, are only a long tissue of errors, which 
entail on him a long series of blunders and misfortunes ; every time he 
renounces the evidence of his reason it is impossible to calculate the 
bounds at which he will finally stop; when he once quits the road of 
experience, when he travels out of nature, when he loses sight of his 
common sense, to strike into the labyrinth of conjecture, it is difficult to 
estimate where his folly will lead him. It may be true that the ideas 
of the happy enthusiast will be less baneful to himself, less dangerous to 
others, than those of the fanatic or bigot, whose temperament may 
render him both cowardly and cruel; nevertheless the opinions of the 
one and of the other will not be for that reason less chimerical ; the only 
difference will be, that of the first will cause agreeable, cheerful dreams, 
while that of the second will produce the most appalling visions, terrific 
spectres, the fruit of a peevish transport of the brain; there, however, 
never will be but a step between them all. The smallest friction in the 
machine, a slight infirmity, an unforseen affliction, suffices to change the 
composition and course of the humors, to vitiate the temperament, to 
endanger the organization, and to overturn the whole system of opinions 
of the happiest, as soon as the portrait is found disfigured the beautiful 
order of things is overthrown relatively to himself; melancholy grapples 
him, and by degrees he plunges into the rankest depths of gloomy 
superstition, and reaps a dismal harvest of fanatic ignorance and cred- 
ulity. 

The writer at this point will make a digression, to describe a scene 
that he witnessed on the evening' of June 18, 1893, at a baccalaureate 
service, when about fifty young theological students were assembled 
before the faculty of the Theological Seminary, and that of the Univer- 
sity of Rochester, the trustees of both institutions, and the alumni in 



An Impressive Baccalaureate Scene. 253 

large numbers, and an audience of spectators of about two thousand. 
These services are held annually., but in all former cases have always 
been in one of the Baptist churches, but this one was held in a Presby- 
terian church, and the class for the first time in the history of this theo- 
logical institution were arrayed in an oriental or pagan uniform, consist- 
ing of a loose fitting Greek costume of black material, and a cap having 
a flat square top,wore so that the corners were over the shoulders on two 
sides, and over the front and rear of the body on the other two sides. 
This class of fifty marched into the church after the audience were 
seated, at the music of the organ, which executed a march for that pur- 
pose, and were conducted to seats reserved for them near the platform 
on which their tutors were assembled, and one of these, President David 
J. Hill, of the University, was the speaker appointed to address them, 
and incidentally also all who were present, and the whole scene, includ- 
ing the splendid auditorium, the brilliant illumination, the floral decora- 
tion, the variety and beauty of the summer costumes of the audience, 
composed largely of young ladies, the superbly grand vocal music of 
more than one hundred first-class vocalists, led by and trained by one 
of the ablest leaders in the city, and accompanied by the best organ and 
the best organist, and a selection of music adapted to call for the most 
elaborate previous practice, resulting in a perfect performance, was a 
combination of incidents which seldom occurs in the life time of any 
one, however long he may live. It certainly has not before occurred in 
my life time of 75 years, and I have had more and better opportunities 
than the average of men. When! the point in the order of service (as 
the church modestly calls what the theatre calls programme) was 
reached which put the orator of the occasion before the audience, he 
read as a text the tenth verse of the second chapter of Colossians, as fol- 
lows: " And ye are complete in him which is the head of all principal- 
ity and power;" completeness in Christ being the theme. From a 
Christian or orthodox standpoint the discourse! was remarkable for its 
scholarly style and forcible presentation of what was to be the standard 
of perfection in human character, and placing much stress on education 
of the intellect as a means of reaching that standard, but gave no hope 
of anything better than an approximation to it by the greatest and best 
attainments of human possibility, when the model before the person 
who was striving for such an attainment was Jesus Christ, crucified. 
The perpetuity of Christianity, as well as its introduction, has always 
depended on this combination of circumstances, and the same rule will 
apply to all systems after it has secured a firm hold upon revenue enough 
to keep it alive, and for want of which many thousands of systems are 
compelled to be abandoned, and finally disappear. The finest, the most 



254 The Skeptic's Defense. 

precocious and well developed in both physical and mental endow- 
ments only, of those who apply for instruction in theology, are selected 
out of the whole number who offer themselves as candidates ; many more 
are rejected than are accepted. Such as are accepted are from the 
moment of such acceptance, through the whole course of four years of 
preparation, most deeply and firmly and constantly impressed by their 
crafty instructors with the supreme solemnity and vast importance of 
theological instruction. The most ingenious authors of the system 
that the seminary or school to which this applicant has been admitted 
belongs, are put into his hands, and these are superseded, as the learner 
advances in ability to grasp more intricate subjects, by a higher and 
more mysterious class of authors, through the whole course, and the 
result is that only about one-half of these who enter ever persevere till 
the course is complete, and receive a diploma. This half or more who 
fail to reach a stage that entitles them to a diploma, or an indorsement 
by the signature of the faculty of instructors, that they are both worthy 
and capable, are left on the hands of the churches which belong to this 
particular system, as the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, etc., 
to provide for, as to their future employment to earn a living, and for 
this purpose, and for this purpose only, the invention of both the home 
and foreign mission enterprise was introduced comparatively recent, 
and these sapheads have been thrust into these fields to get them out of 
the way, and make one of the most outrageous, infernal systems of 
unasked and undesired interferences with the right of every people to 
adopt such systems of religion as they please undisturbed, and ought 
and eventually will result in the massacre of the whole lot of scamps 
who venture among them. This class of successful youths of about 
fifty are now candidates for vacant Baptist pulpits only, and when 
death or other causes, such as apostacy or moral disgrace, causes a 
vacancy, these and others such as these, step in and receive the confi- 
dence, the honors and the emoluments which the vacant position can 
give them, and the law of demand and supply holds the same relation 
in this department of human industry as in all others; a struggle for 
existence animates the whole movement in this field, as in all others, but 
this is the most disgraceful, the most impudent and the most pernicious 
to human welfare of any that can be imagined, a perfectly useless waste 
of time, energy and money; but it will die hard, and so gradual as to be 
scarcely perceptible, but the influences are at work that will ultimately 
destroy it. 

Such demonstrations as the one above described are invented by the 
crafty authors who conduct these institutions of preparation, to make 
and leave on the public at large, as well as the class for whom this per- 



The Young Priest May Be Innocent at First. 255 

fcrmance is more especially designed, a profound and permanent 
impression of its value and necessity to human welfare, when the truth 
is, it is a clog and damage, instead of a benefit, for the immense cost of 
all this preparation is borne at last by the innocent and unsuspecting 
dupes who compose the general public, from whom these leeches suck 
the last drop of pecuniary substance they are able to extract, for this 
costly course of instruction is not bestowed gratis, and in nearly every 
ease the student leaves the seminary deeply in its debt, which in the first 
instance is extracted from a fund collected in every church, by the 
urgent and persistent entreaties of its pastor for the home missions, or 
some such enterprise, but eventually is used to discharge such obliga- 
tions as those of these delinquent students till they can in turn, by their 
earnings and savings, discharge these debts, when the sum that has been 
advanced is returned, but not otherwise. This whole process is nothing 
better than a swindle on an enormous scale, and a continual drain on 
the income or the savings of any community that employs one of these 
innocent robbers, for it is charitable to suppose that in the general aver- 
age of these students at graduation they have not yet suspected this to be 
what they afterwards know it is, nothing but a farce and a swindle, but 
here they are caught in this net of fraud, and hypocrisy for the stifling of 
their later convictions is their only resource to earn a decent living. 
Every graduate from a college is fitted by his mental training of the 
previous four years for some profession, and in most cases gravitate 
towards the profession of law, journalism, medicine, or theology. Such 
as are finally received into this last department are, or pretend to be, 
converted, or regenerated, and are naturally of a serious bias, and have 
been instructed in a way that makes the ambition to preach the. gospel 
overcome all obstacles, and to enter or endeavor to enter upon a prepar- 
atory course of peculiar instruction, always required, and if pursued 
with avidity and enthusiasm, results in so cultivating one branch of the 
intellectual faculties, and dwarfing and weakening all the others,, as to 
render the victim wholly unprepared or unable to pursue any other call- 
ing but that of a priest, and very few of them ever reach above medi- 
ocrity, and only keep their people from being instructed in any useful 
branch of knowledge, but well confirmed in superstition. 

What advantage, then, has ever resulted to the human race, from 
such instructions as such men are able to and do actually deliver, for 
they are both pernicious and barren. They seem to but rarely have any 
other influence than to serve as a cover or pretext for the most vile and 
dangerous passions, as a mantle of security for the most criminal indul- 
gences. Does not the superstitious magistrate or despot, who would 
not only scruple but would not dare to omit the least part of any of the 



256 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ceremonies of his church, on quitting the altars at which he has been 
sacrificing, or on leaving the temple where his priests have been deliver- 
ing the oracles, and terrifying crime in the name of God and heaven, 
return to his vices, repeat his injustice, increase his political crimes, aug- 
ment his transgressions against society? Issuing from the sacred fane, 
their ears still ringing with the doctrines they have tried in vain to 
explain, the priest returns to his usual vexations of a worldly nature, the 
courtier or politician to his intrigues, the harlot to her prostitution, the 
tax gatherer to his extortions, the merchant to his frauds, the insignifi- 
cant trader to his tricks and duplicity. Will it be pretended that those 
cowardly assassins, or those dastardly burglars and highway robbers, or 
these miserable criminals of all grades, whom false instructions, evil 
institutions, the negligence of government, the laxity of morals, contin- 
uallv multiply, and from whom our laws, which are in many instances 
too severe, and in many too merciful, frequently deprive these criminals 
of their lives, will it also be pretended that the malefactors who crowd 
the scaffolds, or the electric chairs, are either incredulous or atheists? 
No! unquestionably these unfortunate beings, these wretched crim- 
inals these social outcasts, these vile wretches, without excep- 
tion firmly believe in a personal God, as well as a personal devil, a 
literal heaven and a literal hell, because they have heard these things 
repeated to them from their infancy, and they have always been 
informed by their priests of the endless and fearful punishment destined 
for sinners; they have been habituated from early life to tremble at the 
judgments of God. In spite of all this, they have dared to outrage soci- 
ety, because their unruly passions were stronger than their fears, for not 
having been influenced by visible motives, have not for any reason been 
restrained by those which are invisible; distant concealed punishments 
will never be competent to arrest those excesses which present and cer- 
tain punishments are incapable of preventing. Does not every day's 
experience furnish us the lesson, that men persuaded that an allseeing 
deity views them, hears them, surrounds them, do not on that account 
arrest their progress when 4he impulse exists either for gratifying their 
licentious passions or committing the most diabolical crimes? The 
same individual who would fear the inspection of his conduct or motives 
by one of the meanest of his fellows, whom the presence of another 
man would prevent him from committing a vile, disreputable action, 
from delivering himself up to some scandalous vice, cheerfully lends 
himself to crime when he believes no eye beholds him but God's. What 
purpose, then, does the conviction of the omniscience, the omnipotence 
and the omnipresence of the divinity answer, if it imposes much less 
influence on the conduct of men than the certainty of being seen by one 



The Belief in a Personal God No Barrier to Crime. 257 

of his associates, however inferior, for he, who would not have the 
temerity or boldness to commit a crime even in the presence of a child, 
will make no scruple of boldly committing it when he has only his God 
for a witness. 

These undoubted, well-established facts serve for a reply to those 
who insist that the fear of God is more powerful to restrain the actions 
of men than wholesome laws and strict discipline, for in every case when 
man believes he has only his God to dread, he permits nothing to inter- 
rupt his course. Those persons who do not in the least suspect the 
power of superstitious notions, and have or pretend to have the most 
perfect reliance on their utility or efficacy, very rarely, however, employ 
them, when they are desirous to influence the conduct of those who 
have a right to look to them for a guide to their conduct, or for their 
instruction, such as children, for in the advice which a father gives to his 
vicious or criminal child, he always strongly represents to such child 
the present temporal inconvenience to which his evil conduct exposes 
him, here and now, rather than the danger they encounter, in by such 
conduct offending an implacable or avenging God. He likewise points 
out to him or them the natural consequences of his irregularities, how 
his health is likely to be damaged by his debaucheries, how he will 
lose his reputation for integrity by his criminal pursuits, also the ruin 
of his fortune and prospects by gambling, and many other such reasons 
why he should, instead of a course of criminal indulgence, walk in the 
more agreeable and honest path of virtue and innocence. Such a mode 
of reasoning operates far more strongly and steadfastly upon the force 
of natural motives than upon those motives that are furnished by super- 
stition. The same man who villifies or disparages the motives the 
atheist can have to do good, and live a virtuous life here, and abstain 
from an evil course of conduct, makes use of them himself on this occa- 
sion, because he feels that they are the best that he can employ. Almost 
all men in the whole world, belonging to many different forms of 
religion, believe in an avenging and also in a remunerating God. Yet 
the wicked and depraved, under all these systems, make a large majority 
of the whole, and when the true cause of this corruption is sought for 
and traced to its source, it will more frequently be found in the super- 
stitious notions inculcated by the speculations and absurdities of theol- 
ogy, than in those imaginary sources which the various superstitions 
have from time to time invented, to account for human depravity. Man 
is always corrupt when he is badly governed, for when superstition 
defies the sovereign, his government becomes weak and unworthy, and 
the people are rendered miserable. <When the people are ruled by 
irrational despots they are never guided by reason or judgment. When 



258 The Skeptic's Defense. 

they are blinded by their priests, who are always either deceivers or 
impostors, and sometimes both, their reason becomes useless. Tyrants, 
when combined with priests, as they usually are, are always successful 
in their efforts to prevent such nation from becoming instructed or 
enlightened, from as much as seeking after or even desiring truth, from 
ameliorating their condition or perfecting their morals, hence every peo- 
ple so situated have been unable to resist these mighty torrents of priestly 
tyranny and of despotism, because the confluence of two such mighty 
rivers have caused these people to sink into the most abject slavery, but 
little above the savage state. Perhaps it will be asked if we can reason- 
ably flatter ourselves with ever reaching a point of development that 
will enable any whole people to entirely forget and abandon their unten- 
able superstitious opinions, and the foolish ideas they have about their 
Gcds. It is unhesitatingly granted that such a desirable result appears 
utterly impossible, for it is too much to be hoped for. 

These ideas, which have been inculcated by the priests for an unwor- 
thy object from the earliest ages, do not appear of a nature to admit of 
a total eradication from the mind of a majority of mankind, while the 
successors of these same priests are constantly endeavoring to strengthen 
and to perpetuate all these superstitions, and increasing the number, as 
their inventive genius and the necessity of a change in these notions 
appear to be desirable. It would, perhaps, be equally difficult to give 
correct ideas to those persons who arrived at a certain age when both 
body and mind is mature, and have never yet heard them spoken of, or 
not fully explained to them, as to banish them from the minds of those 
who have been impressed with them from their earliest infancy. Thus it 
does not seem either probable or possible to make a whole nation pass 
out of the abyss of superstition, or in other words from the condition of 
ig-norance, from the ravings of delirium, into absolute naturalism, or as 
the priests of superstition would name it, " atheism," which must be pre- 
ceded by reflection and intense study, demands extensive knowledge and 
a long series of experience, includes the habit of contemplating nature 
and some acquaintance with her laws, contained in the expansive science 
of the causes which produce her various phenomena, her multiplied com- 
binations, and the diversified actions of the beings which she contains, 
as well as of their numerous properties. In order to be an atheist, 
worthy of such a name, he needs to be positively assured of the capabil- 
ities of nature, and he must study and meditate her profoundly. A 
superficial glance of the eye will not bring man acquainted with her 
resources, for the eye may be and frequently is deceived, without exten- 
sive practice and the assistance of suitable lenses, and the existence of 
ignorance about natural causes will always induce the supposition of 



Who Are These Who Benefit Their Race. 259 

those which are only ^imaginary, and credulity thus will conduct or 
re-conduct the natural philosopher to the feet of superstitious phantoms, 
in which either his limited vision, or his habitual repugnance to intense 
labor, will make him believe he shall find a solution of every difficulty. 
In consequence of such considerations as above alluded to, and 
many others that might be mentioned, atheism, philosophy, and all pro- 
found abstruse sciences, are not calculated for the vulgar, nor adapted 
to the comprehension of the great mass of mankind ; but there are in all 
populous highly civilized nations many persons whose inclinations and 
circumstances enable them to devote much of their spare time to medi- 
tation, whose easy finances afford them both the means and the facili- 
ties to supply themselves with the requisite books, as also the leisure 
and disposition to both read and make the most deep and profound 
researches into the nature of things and subjects beyond the grasp of the 
average man, and these are the ones who frequently make useful discov- 
eries, which sooner or later, after they have been submitted to the scru- 
tiny and the infallible test of experience, when they have passed these 
fiery ordeals, and have gone into demonstration, or as we say, truth, 
extend far and wide their salutary effects, become extremely beneficial 
to society in general, and highly advantageous and interesting to indi- 
viduals. Such are the geometrician, the geologist, the chemist, and 
every branch of science, who one and all are indebted to these individu- 
als, as also is the mechanic, the natural philosopher, the artist and the 
moralist, who are all industriously employed, either in their study, their 
laboratories, or their workshops, seeking to secure the means to serve 
and benefit society, each in his sphere ; at the same time not one of these 
discoveries, made with so much skill and labor, can ever be compre- 
hended by the illiterate; not one of the arts with which investigators are 
respectively occupied are ever known to the uninitiated mass of men, 
but these do not fail in the long run to profit by them and to reap great 
advantages from these men's labors, of which they themselves have no 
idea. It is for the mariner that the astronomer explores and reduces to 
a tangible form his intricate calculations; it is for him the geometrician 
calculates and constructs his wonderful tables of figures; it is for his 
use the ordinary mechanic, who is an expert in the pursuit of his par- 
ticular occupation, plies his craft. It is for the mason, the carpenter, 
the common laborer, that the skillful architect studies to fill his orders 
and lays down and accurately specifies his well proportioned plans. 
On the contrary, of all these valuable aids to the ignorant and unskilled 
masses of the people, whatever may be the pretended utility or the 
vaunted advantages of superstitious opinions, the subtle theologian can- 
not boast either of toiling, of writing, of teaching, or disputing, for the 



260 The Skeptic's Defense. 

advantage of the people, but for all this he contrives to tax them 
very exorbitantly for those intricate unmeaning*systems they can never 
understand, and which he does not any more comprehend than they do ; 
but still he levies the most oppressive contributions as his remuneration 
for the detailing of those mysteries, which under any circumstances 
cannot at any future time be of the least benefit, but always a damage to 
them; so that it is not for the multitude that I propose to myself either to 
write or to meditate. The code of nature, as I call it, or the principles 
of atheism, as the priests call it, are not considered to be calculated for 
the comprehension of a great number of persons, who are nearly always 
too much prepossessed in favor of the received superstitious prejudices, 
although extremely enlightened,or, as we say, smart, on other points. It is 
extremely rare to find men, who, in addition to an enlarged mind, exten- 
sive knowledge, great talents, have also a well regulated imagination, or 
sufficient courage to attack any commonly received error, when such 
is perceived by them, or to boldly examine those chimerical systems 
with which his brain has been inoculated from the first dawn of his feeble 
intellect,and hence the man who writes must neither fix his eyes or expec- 
tations on the time in which he lives, upon his actual fellow mortals, nor 
upon the country which he inhabits, for he must consider he speaks only 
to the human race, and to be able to instruct future generations, he must 
anticipate what the developments of the future will lead men to require 
and appreciate, and it will be in vain for him to flatter himself with any 
probability of seeing his reasonings adopted, or any eulogies from his 
contemporaries, and he must not soothe himself with the pleasing reflec- 
tion that his advanced principles or his conclusions will be received 
even with kindness. If he has recorded any truths, the ages that are to 
follow will do full justice to his well intended efforts. Until this epoch, 
so desirable for humanity, shall arrive, the principles of naturalism or 
atheism will be adopted by only a small number of liberal minded men, 
who are able to dive below the surface. These cannot make but few 
proselytes, or have many approvers, but, on the contrary, they will inev- 
itably meet with many zealous adversaries, even in those persons who 
upon most other subjects discover the most acute minds, and the most 
consummate knowledge. Such men, as has been before stated, who pos- 
sess the greatest share of ability, cannot be expected to at once be 
resolved to divorce themselves from their superstitious ideas. Their 
imagination, which is necessary to produce splendid talents, is apt to 
form in them an insurmountable object to the total extinction of preju- 
dice, and this depends much more upon the judgment than upon the 
will; in a great number of men it would be wresting from them, so toj 
speak, a portion of themselves, to take from them these superstitious! 



The Silence of History About Christ Noticed. 261 

notions, depriving them of their accustomed aliment, and plunging 
them into a fearful vacuum, where their distempered mind would perish 
for want of exercise. Let us then not be surprised if very intelligent 
and even learned men shut their eyes, and run counter to their ordinary 
sagacity and sense. 

Atheism, materialism and naturalism make the trinity of the skeptic, 
and are to him the equivalents of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost of the Christians, and are his trinity, and are combined in his 
imagination, so as to make a personal God, or separately are each a 
God, equal in power, majesty and glory. All these conceptions of the 
skeptic are real and manifest to all the senses, so as to be capable of 
demonstration, while those of the Christian are purely and only imagin- 
ary, and for that reason incapable of proof. The Christian theologian 
is never tired of extolling a fictitious character which he has invented 
and named Jesus Christ, and caused him to appear to have actually 
lived in a human body, by certain descriptions he finds recorded in what 
he has invented, and called the four gospels. A careful examination of 
these by an unbiased person will perceive that* the attempt was made by 
the writer of these gospels to delineate or describe a perfect, or model 
moral character, for a sample to be imitated or striven for by every one 
who should adopt the name of Christian, but no writer was capable to 
portray such a perfect character, but left the one who they brought for- 
ward as full of blemishes, or as imperfect, as they who tried to conceive 
this perfect character themselves were, and consequently we have never 
found the Christian portion of mankind superior in any respect, as to 
their moral character or their intellectual abilities, from any other men ; 
in fact, the enormous vices found in all Christian lanclsl are more than 
sufficient to offset some traits that appear to excel in some directions, 
such as are found elsewhere, and the boast constantly made of superior- 
ity is an empty one, when the whole of both sides of the story is told. 

Ever since this writer has so far advanced in his unbelief in the 
inspiration of the scriptures, as to lay aside that feeling of reverence and 
awe that characterizes all readers of the Bible, and read and examine 
the gospels with reference to finding what basis there was on which to 
found the claim of divinity, or even of perfect humanity, of its hero, Jesus 
Christ, he has been not only surprised but actually astonished at the 
result. While it is possible to find in literature, extensive, elaborate 
works of philosophy and morals, written by Plato, by Socrates, by Aris- 
totle, who all lived five hundred years before the so-called Christian era 
begun, and their biographers and other historians gave a full history of 
all the leading incidents of their whole lives of fifty or more years, and 
agree as to their wonderful abilities and usefulness to not only their own 



262 The Skeptic's Defense. 

but to all future generations, and the same can be said of poets, such as 
Homer, Virgil, many others, not one word can be found to prove that 
Jesus Christ either did or could either read or write, in these gospels, or 
anywhere else, and his whole life from his birth to his death lasting only 
about thirty years, is a total blank ; only twice in this whole period is he 
permitted to appear at all ; once, when about twelve years old, he came 
to Jerusalem and got lost, and twenty years after that he arrived there 
after a trip from Nazareth, about Judea, lasting as the gospel of John 
has it, only one year, and was immediately arrested, tried, convicted 
and executed. Surprisingly little is to be found about him, either bad, 
good or indifferent, and of his teachings nothing whatever that was 
original with him, and no living person ever wrote down, when it 
occurred, a single incident of his birth, life, or his teachings, death, or 
resurrection, within at least a hundred years from the alleged time when 
these events occurred, granting for the sake of the argument they ever 
occurred, and then these gospel writers invented these impossible state- 
ments, and to make them seem numerous and important, the last three 
repeated with a slight variation what the first had written, and added 
some of their own invention, and when you inquire of the theologian or 
the priest how the writer knew what to write about a long past event, 
about which no record had been kept, he will reply, God informed him, 
and guided his pen, so that a mistake is impossible, and the dupe is easy 
satisfied this is so, because his mother and his Sunday-school teacher 
have always told him so, too, and in my own personal experience I know 
the truth to be as I have above stated it, and it satisfied me for more than 
sixty-five years, but is now gone. 

In every age, since man has arrived by gradual stages of develop- 
ment from his primitive condition to his present, or his comparatively 
recent condition, when he became able to use his faculty of reason and 
reflection, in all countries, under all forms of civilization and of religious 
belief, the masses, or the great majority of mankind, have always been, 
and very likely will always continue to be, steeped in superstition, pov- 
erty and ignorance, consequently they become easily the dupes of impo- 
sition, fraud and deception, perpetrated upon them by the minority. 
This minority is composed of the comparatively few men who have been 
situated or surrounded by a number of favorable circumstances and 
influences, such, for instance, as a superior brain or mental development, 
superior physical constitution, superior advantages of education in both 
science, morals and art, and the useful faculties of memory and industry, 
united to frugality, and a desire to acquire the most useful knowledge, 
so as to qualify them in turn to become competent to instruct those who 
are constantly coming forward, and desiring and requiring instruction. 



The Disadvantage of a Short Career of Christ. 263 

Out of this few superior men, perhaps one or two will become conspicu- 
ous enough to find a place in the history of his times, and his exploits 
will be thus transmitted to future generations, in whatever direction his 
talents have been directed, to render him famous above others of his 
times. Such, for instance, as a great poet, a great moralist, a great 
general, etc., for no one man is great in all things. These great men 
will be an example and benefit to their successors, causing some among 
them to become still more famous, and these are distributed among 
every variety of useful occupations, and are constantly succeeding each 
other, and in this way mankind as a whole are prevented from lapsing 
back into a savage state, and also to make it impossible to make any 
perceptible change in human conditions for the better from age to age, 
because the intelligent portion of mankind,when compared to the whole, 
are too few to operate on the whole mass of superstition and stupidity 
so as to be perceptible. Each kind or form of religion, as the Jewish, 
the Christian, the various forms of paganism, the Mahometan, and even 
the latest, the Mormon, is invented, instead of being, as they all claim to 
be, a revelation, and those who invented it, and their successors, one 
after another, perceiving its defects when put into practice, have added 
from time to time improvements to satisfy some want not at first per- 
ceived. Each one of these numerous forms, after it had developed into 
a system strong and powerful enough to make it able to survive and 
increase, sets up for itself the claim of superiority over its rivals, by its 
priests making prominent all its alleged merits, and concealing or ignor- 
ing its defects, and exposing and making prominent the great defects of 
their rivals, and ignoring and concealing its merits. This is the chief 
duty of all the priests of the several systems, who devote all their ener- 
gies during life to this one object. In every form of religion except 
the Christian, with which we are acquainted by its history, the founder 
thereof devoted a long, mature life to its propagation and improvement, 
and left it at his death so complete as to need no further improvement, 
but simply to be maintained and strengthened, the founder thereof hav- 
ing left on record, written by himself, sufficient instructions and direc- 
tions to secure its perpetuity. The reverse of this process is unfortun- 
ately the case by the founder of the Christian system, for he only lived 
at the longest three years, and some of the evangelists who wrote his 
life say only one year, after he emerged from obscurity into mature 
manhood, and none of these four gospel writers even pretend he ever 
cither wrote one word, or dictated one word for them to write, during 
his public life, which was from his birth to his death so private and 
obscure as to make it impossible to verify the fact of his ever having 
existed at all, except the mere word of these unknown men who wrote 



264 The Skeptic's Defense. 

these gospels; much less is it possible to trace any instruction in these 
gospels to him, for it was all written more than a hundred years after he 
died, and there is no pretence that it was copied from any history or 
manuscript, so that it is impossible to find any authority on whom to 
fix with certainty, or even probability, this monstrous imposition of 
Christianity, for it is no relief to call or name these several writers, 
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Peter and Paul, and all the rest, for it 
is still a greater mystery who and what they were, and when and where 
they lived, for there is not the least trace of any of them anywhere to be 
found on earth but in this book, said to have been wrjtten by them, and 
what they wrote of a moral or beneficial nature was not new or original 
with them, for such .great moralists as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and 
others, left on record five hundred years before Christ had lived, con- 
ceding he ever lived at all, such precepts as the so-called " Golden Rule," 
and all other moral precepts contained in the four gospels, but such 
monstrous absurdities as are in the so-called Sermon on the Mount, as 
given by Matthew in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of his gospel, 
ought never to have been written, and attributed to Christ; for unless 
the whole human race always has totally disregarded nearly every pre- 
cept in that sermon, the human race had never existed beyond the lowest 
savage, for it is manifestly impossible for modern society, or any mem- 
ber thereof, to even exist, that is as improvident and unconcerned about 
t:>-morrow as is the lily of the field or the fowls of the air, and if every 
one were to give to every one what he chose to ask of you, would very- 
soon deprive the richest person from having anything to give, and the 
absurd precept to " Love your enemies " is both impossible and ridicu- 
lous. If that monstrous, outrageous, devilish word, " inspiration," had 
never been invented, and when invented had never been applied to the 
scriptures, it would never have existed at all, much less have been pre- 
served, and transmitted down to our times, as too sacred to be examined 
or criticised, for it is entirely destitute of any literary merits, untruthful 
and contradictory in many of its statements, so capable of misconstruc- 
tion, so impossible of belief in many of its statements ; but, notwithstand- 
ing all this, the educated priest can take from it any phrase, however 
short, such as this, " Jesus wept," and enlarge upon it a whole day, and 
by a skillful appeal to the emotional and sympathetic nature of his 
listeners, can cause nearly all of them to also weep, if he also sheds a 
few crocodile tears; or such a text as this one, "It is appointed of all 
men once to die." What an eloquent appeal can be made for a suitable 
preparation for death, by joining our church, and get a policy of insur- 
ance on the future joys of heavenly felicity. Does it need any inspira- 
tion, or any argument, to convince any fool of such a self-evident fact, 



The Uses of Conscience Variable. 265 

that every living thing must die, as it is called? Yet the priest will 
enlarge upon such a theme till he will tire any audience, and put them to 
sleep. 

What are the pretended Christian churches of the present day, and 
what have they been since the reformation? Nothing but a mere club 
house for the wealthy people, and the minister is hired to preach such a 
gospel as suits the rich, or he is soon fired out. Every person who has 
been reared where the Christian religion is the prevailing one, is very 
familiar with the word " conscience," and no other form uses that word 
in the sense the Christian does, for it in reality is only expressive and 
important when men strive to heed and obey it. What then is con- 
science? It is one of the organs of the intellect; it is formed, altered and 
improved, according to the kind of education it receives, and the influ- 
ences that surround and act upon each separate individual; therefore, 
being an organ of the mind or intellect, it becomes strengthened and 
refined by the education of the mind. In the condition of the savage 
conscience demands but very little, for it is to him only an instinct, never 
to be disobeyed; he therefore seldom or never does that which he has 
been taught to consider wrong, but to commit adultery or even incest 
is not wrong to him, or to eat^soup made from the remains of his dead 
grandfather, or to kill a sickly or deformed child, or other relative, or 
murder any one outside of his village or tribe, is no wrong to him, but 
as soon as he arrives to the condition of civilized man, he has refined 
sentiments, and a more or less cultivated intellect, according to his 
environments, and in this condition scarcely a day passes in which such 
a man does not, more or less, violate his conscience, and impute sin to 
himself, when nothing but legal or imaginary sin is involved by his con- 
duct, but this life by this imaginary violation is passed in self condemna- 
tion, because perhaps he has wasted his time and energies on an unwor- 
thy object, or in pursuit of transitory pleasure, or he has unintentionally 
perhaps spoken an unkind word, or even had an impure thought, but 
such light sins, if sins they are, do not trouble coarse men. Conscience 
can be instructed to consider it absolutely wicked to do that which he 
would not wish it to be done to himself, or to do that to a woman which 
he would not wish done to his own sister or wife, but the individual to 
whom this is done may not so regard it, but on the contrary it may be 
by them considered beneficial, and here we come to a singular fact. The 
more man is sunk in brutality the less frequently they sin against their 
conscience, and as men become more virtuous they become more sinful. 
Some men's conscience would forbid them writing as I have written, 
but my conscience not only approves of it, but would trouble me if I 
had omitted to write as I have, for I consider it to be the unquestionable 



266 The Skeptic's Defense. 

right, as it is a natural right of every man, to have and to express, either 
in writing or orally, on all proper occasions, such religious views and 
opinions as his judgment approves, without either knowing or caring 
whether such opinions harmonize with those who read them or hear 
them, or not. If, therefore, my religious opinions, written or expressed, 
shall be condemned without a single exception by all the readers of this 
book, it will not make me regret having written them, or discourage me 
from expressing them, if the opportunity presents itself, for it is my ear- 
nest and sincere conviction that these opinions are not only true, but 
also that they will tend to elevate and purify the minds of whoever 
receives them. I know it has done me good to write these sentiments, 
therefore I think it will do others good to read and cherish them, for 
surely they can never injure any one. I have long reflected upon these 
momentous subjects, and the opportunity has never before presented 
itself for me to have the requisite leisure to meditate and crudely formu- 
late such imperfect observations as are contained in what I have above 
written ; being now seventy-five years old, and incapacitated from physi- 
cal labor, I have, in this evening of my days, the time before denied me, 
therefore, I have concluded to exercise the freedom to disclose what my 
long experience has taught me, both the right to think with that free- 
dom which accumulated knowledge imparts, and what I think I Have 
dared to put in writing, and leave for the future to adopt or reject, as to 
them seems best. At one period of my long life, and in fact for nearly 
all my adult life, I believed in the gospel narrative of the life, death, res- 
urrection, and the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth. Why did I believe 
this? Simply and only because I was instructed from unconscious 
infancy, childhood and mature manhood, to so believe, and many other 
things arising from this belief, and so connected with it as to be insep- 
arable. After much examination and reflection I have concluded that 
such a Christ as the gospels delineate never has lived, and never will 
live, and the most that I now admit, and this is mixed with much doubt, 
is that there once lived, in some remote country and time, impossible 
of more than very weak conjecture, a young man named Jesus, a car- 
penter by trade, who believed that this earth belonged to the devil, and 
that the God of the Jews would soon take it from the devil, and govern 
ic himself, and that he, Jesus, the Christ, or annomted, as the word sig- 
nifies, was or would be appointed by God both to direct, purify and 
reign over the souls of men on earth, and be their judge at last. In 
politics he was what we now call a communist, or leveler of all distinc- 
tions of wealth or honors, in morals a mere monk, or abstainer, and 
therefore believed and taught that only the poor and despised would 
inherit the kingdom of God, and those who had riches or reputation 



Christianity as the Gospels Portray It. 267 

would go to the devil, their dethroned master, into everlasting pain, 
which he named hell fire at last. He violently attacked the church 
going Sabbatarians, the ever-praying Pharisees calling them all the vile 
names he could invent, and plainly declared that piety was worthless if 
it was praised on earth, and that all earthly happiness was a gift from 
Satan, and should therefore be indignantly refused. If a man was poor 
in this world, that was goodness, because he would be rich in the world 
to come, and if he were miserable and despised he ought to rejoice, for 
he was for that reason out of favor with Satan, the ruler of this world, 
and therefore in favor with the new or future dynasty, over which he 
was to preside; on the other hand, if a man were happy, rich, or esteemed 
for his generosity or virtue, he would be forever lost; he might have 
acquired his riches by industry, his reputation by honesty and benevo- 
lence, devotion, and obedience to moral laws; but all this did not avail, 
for he had already received his reward, and no more should be expected, 
and he also taught that all men should sell all they had and give the 
avails to the poor, so that all might be poor alike; and they should 
renounce, as he had done, all family ties, let to-morrow take care of 
itself, have no anxiety about any clothes or shelter, for God would take 
care of them, if they would fold their hands together, and have faith, 
and abstain wholly from making any provision for the future, and many 
other like absurdities with which these gospels abound. Such princi- 
ples were not regarded conducive to the welfare of society, as under- 
stood by his contemporaries, and he was put to death as a disturber of 
the peace by the secular authority, after about a year of teaching these 
monstrosities, and then a few of his disciples established, 4 by imposition 
and outrageous fraud, a sort of commune, which has since developed 
into Christianity such as we have it, only a mixture of Judaism and 
paganism, a fraud on the human race too disgusting and pernicious to 
be worth tracing through its history. The human family, if it had never 
been disturbed with any form or variety of religion, would have been 
many thousand years further along towards their ultimate destiny than 
they are now, but the signs of the present time indicate with some dis- 
tinctness a great change in human progress, for religion is slowly dying, 
and science is slowly but surely assuming its proper place at the front 
rank in human estimation. Useful inventions have been delayed by the 
blighting influence of superstitious reverence, for a mere shadow, 
because the swarms of priests must first be supported in luxury and 
indolence, and listened to on account of their impudent claim of divine 
authority, and these have always opposed science, and denied their 
dupes the right to use their reason, till they have so outraged decency 
that a revolt has now begun that will never be allowed to diminish, but 



268 The Skeptic's Defense. 

inevitably is sure to increase. Electrical science, which the ancient 
world faintly observed, and it would have been developed into a perfect 
motive power a thousand years ago only for the influence of the church, 
now just begins to be revived and advanced, and no priest dare utter a 
word of opposition or discouragement. Steam power, which was dis- 
covered and developed by infidels, in spite of priestly opposition, has 
nearly had its day, and will shortly be superseded by electricity for not 
only a motive power, but for heat and illumination, and so do away 
with the cumbrous fuel of coal and oil, and its aid to aeriel locomotion 
will in time be possible, as well as navigation on the ocean and land, 
and annihilate distance, and blot out all national distinctions, and the 
necessity of reliance upon vegetable or animal life for subsistence will 
disappear, by the manufacture of both flesh and flour from the natural 
elements, by a chemical process in the laboratory, and thus food will 
be produced in unlimited quantities at a trifling expense, and our 
enlightened posterity will look back upon us and our ancestors who eat 
oxen and sheep just as we now look upon cannibals; hunger and star- 
vation will then be unknown, and the greater part of human life will 
no longer be wasted in the tedious process of cultivating the fields, when 
this time arrives population can and will mightily increase, and the 
earth will become a vast garden, adorned with luscious fruits and beau- 
tiful flowers; governments, as we have them now, will disappear, and 
the social fabric will be conducted with the quiet and regularity of club 
committees, and political interest will then be transferred to science, 
which will then be advanced to the front rank of human aspiration and 
endeavor, and poetry and art will take the place which religion now 
occupies; luxuries will be cheap and common, and poverty^will disap- 
pear; man will subdue his passions, and repress the base instincts he has 
inherited from the animals below him, and obey the laws of nature, both 
physical and moral, and worship only the god within him; idleness and 
stupidity will be regarded with the utmost scorn and abhorrence, women 
will be the companions and equals with men, and the tutors and example 
to their children. A time will surely come when science will transform 
our bodies, by means which our present, limited capacities cannot 
conjecture, and which if explained to us clearly we could not now under- 
stand, any more than a savage mind cannot now understand steam, 
electricity or magnetism, as we now have them in common use ; diseases 
will be extirpated, the causes of decay will be removed, and then the 
earth will be too small to contain its inhabitants, and men will migrate 
into space, and cross the ocean of air which separates planet from planet, 
and sun from sun, and man will ultimately become master of the forces 
of nature, the architect of systems, the manufacturer of worlds; he will 



The Design of Creation Obscure. 269 

then be a creator, but even then lie will be no nearer than he is at pres- 
ent to the first cause, the inscrutable, unapproachable mystery, win eh 
mortals for want of a more expressive word call God. 

There is now no difference in kind, but only in degree, between the 
chemist who to-day arranges the forces in his laboratory so as to pro- 
duce a gas, and the creator who arranges forces so that they produce a 
world, or a gardener or farmer who plants a seed, and the creator who 
plants a nebulae. It is a question at this point for us to determine, 
whether we have or ought to have any personal or intimate relation 
with this supreme power, whatever we call it, whether God or natural 
law, and whether there is or ever will be another world in which we will 
be rewarded or punished as is due to our unavoidable conduct, all 
things taken into account. This is not only a grand problem of philos- 
ophy, but it is of all questions the most important and practical for us, 
and the one in which our interests are most vitally concerned, for w r e 
all have observed that at the very longestf this life is short, and at the 
very best its pleasures are poor, for in nearly all cases before we any- 
where near reach our desires, we are compelled to die. 

What then, I ask, is the current or commonly received theory 
respecting the nature of the creator, the design of creation, and the 
future destiny of man, and on what is this theory founded? The princi- 
pal foundation of this theory is a certain book called the Bible, or sacred 
book, and called sacred because a being called God is its author, or 
its inspirer; a secondary foundation is the priesthood, who have invented 
not only the book itself, but the theory or system named Theology, 
which asserts and endeavors to establish this proposition: The world 
and all it contains was made at a specified time, out of previous noth- 
ing, by this being which they name Eternal God, including man, who 
he created in his own image and likeness, and, therefore, God's mind is 
the same as that of man, but while the mind of man is found to be 
imperfect, troubled by passions, and stained by sin, limited in capacity, 
his mind is perfect power and love, both omnipotent and omnipresent; 
he loves men whom he has made, but sorrows over their sins, and he has 
placed them on earth in a state of probation or preparation, those who 
have sinned, including all,and those who repent of sin,including but few, 
he will forgive, and on them he will bestow or confer eternal felicity; all 
others he will punish to vindicate his justice. This reward and punish- 
ment is inflicted only on the soul, which only resides in the body in this 
short life, and this soul is entirely distinct from the intellect or mind, so 
that the soul of the most vile and degraded, and that of the greatest 
philosopher or poet, are equal in the sight of the creator, for he is no 
respecter of persons, and the value of souls are computed only by their 



270 The Skeptic's Defense. 

sins, but the sins of the ignorant will be forgiven, and the sins of the 
enlightened will be more severely judged and punished. What a plaus- 
ible, reasonable theory theology has invented, but let us trace it out to 
its ultimate or full extent. The souls of idiots, not being responsible for 
their sins, will go to heaven, while the souls of such great and good 
men as Voltaire, Rosseau, Bacon, Newton, Franklin, and Lincoln, are 
always in danger of hell fire. All alike in infancy were poor, helpless 
creatures, thrust into the world by a higher force, against which they 
could not prevail, not capable of doing any one any harm, but yet con- 
stantly tortured by pain and privation, nourished in vice, crime and dis- 
ease, is permitted to live and suffer a certain time, more or less, and then 
it is extinguished. It is all very comforting to those who are in this way 
bereaved to have the priest say it has gone to eternal bliss, but why was 
it not taken there direct? All thisi roundabout process ought to have 
been foreseen and avoided, and would have been by an omniscient 
being. 

The above remarks only are intended to apply to the popular idea 
of the character and conduct of the creator, which asserts also that he is 
endowed with a mind or intellect. This is most vehemently_ denied for 
the following reasons. The conduct of an earthly father towards his 
child sometimes appears to others to be cruel, when in reality it is not 
cruel, because he does it for the good of the child ; but a parent is neither 
omnipotent or omniscient, so he is obliged to choose between two evils; 
but the creator is both, and he therefore chooses cruelty as a means of 
education or development; he has a preference for cruelty, or 
he would not use it; he is therefore fond of cruelty or he would 
not prefer it; he therefore is cruel, which is absurd. Again, sin entered 
the world against the will of the creator, in which case he is not omnipo- 
tent; or it entered with his permission, in which case it is his agent, in 
which case he has selected sin, in which case he is fond of sin, in which 
case he is sinful, which is a greater absurdity. But it is when we open 
the book of nature, that book inscribed in tears, and blood, and intense 
suffering of all imaginable kinds and degrees, that we plainly see how 
untrue and deceptive is the theory of the theologian, that the God of the 
Bible is love, for in all things there is cruel misery and profligate waste 
of all the animals that are born, a few only survive till mature, and not 
only is there waste in human life, but the same waste is found in moral 
life, the instinct of filial love is planted in the human constitution, and 
that which to some is a solace is to others a torture; how many muse on 
the days that might have been, and how many eyes, when they read these 
words, will be filled with tears; how brief is delight, and how long are 
our pains; our joys soon grow into regrets, and our happiness is only 



Of What Value is Supernaturalism. 271 

a dream, which we only realize when it is past. Is pain, grief, disease 
and death, then, only the best invention of a living God? That no 
animal shall rise to supreme excellence except by being fatal to the lives 
of others — is this the law of a kind creator? No! by no means. What, 
then, are we to infer? Only that the current theory, or theology, is 
false, and that all attempts to define the creator are only ridiculous, far- 
cical conclusions, for the supreme power is not a mind, but something 
we know not what, that is higher or beyond a mind; not a force, but 
something more than force; not a being, but something superior to a 
being, and a something for which we at present, nor any that have pre- 
ceded us, can have words suitable to express so sublime an idea, 
scarcely within the scope of the most active imagination, but which will 
be plain to the future man, when his capacity is enlarged to comprehend 
it ; but the past and present man is as far removed from the power to 
fathom this mystery as the worm or beetle is removed from the ability to 
comprehend man, and it therefore follows that man is not made in the 
image of God, or in his likeness, and that leads us to the following con- 
clusions: Supernatural Christianity, which is the kind we have, is false; 
God worship is pagan idolatry; prayer is nothing but a useless mockery; 
The soul is not immortal; There are no rewards and no punishments 
in a future state, for there is no future state. The origin of either good 
or evil can never be explained, but must always, as far as we can see, 
remain a mystery, and all attempts to explain one or the other only 
mystify it more deeply, because the profoundest thinker is a mere worm, 
crawling for a day over the surface of a speck of matter, named to dis- 
tinguish it from other specks, " earth," and the most profound religion 
is nothing but a mere phantom, or superstition, that ought to be 
destroyed, and forever banished, from human remembrance, for what 
is the question? It is not whether any form of religion assisted the civ- 
ilization of our ancestors, but is it assisting those now on the stage of 
iife? 

I, for my part, consider it a duty to set free from its chains as many 
as I can, for upon this point my conscience, or, if you please, my con- 
ceptions of duty, speaks distinctly, and shall be obeyed. In all my 
assaults on Christianity I use the clearest language I can command. 
Ridicule is a destructive weapon, and I intend to destroy and tear up by 
the roots as much imposition and fraud as I can. Christianity must be 
destroyed, because the world has outgrown that religion, and. is now in 
the condition of the Roman empire in pagan days, a cold-hearted 
infidelity in the higher ranks, and sordid superstition in the lower, and 
an endeavor on the part of the priests to reconcile the fables of a bar- 
barous people with the facts of science and the lofty conceptions of phil- 



272 The Skeptic's Defense. 

osophy. Youths enter the church before their minds are formed, dis- 
cover when it is too late what it is they adore, and since these priests 
cannot tell the truth, and let their wives and children starve, they are 
forced to lead a life which is only a lie. What a state of society is this, 
in which a free thinker is a term of abuse, and when doubt is a sin. 
Churches are mere apparel shows, and genteel recreation. Theology 
is progressive, adapting itself to changes, and modifying its harsh, 
untruthful dogmas by councils wherein debate, strife and violence yields 
to a majority, so that the worship of a ghost or myth is succeeded by a 
pagan deity in many parts, and that finally to one God, and in this pro- 
cess a curious fact is revealed. Those who seek to overthrow any 
established system always attack its founders, and show their method 
unsound, and their reasoning weak, and their experiments futile, and 
yet the men who create a revolution are made in the likeness of those 
they seek to subvert. In the same manner we who in this aee assail 
the Christian's faith are the true successors of the early Christians, above 
whom, we are raised by the progress of eighteen hundred years. As 
they preached against Gods that were made of stone, or other base 
material, so we preach against Gods that are made of ideas. As they 
were called atheists and blasphemers, so are we; but we have not the 
stimulants to offer which they had, we cannot threaten as they did that 
the world is about to be destroyed; we cannot bribe our converts with 
the false promise of a heaven; we cannot make them tremble with the 
fear of a hell. A faith such as that of the stoics and Sadducees can only 
be embraced by cultivated minds, and culture in their days was con- 
fined to a select few, but now knowledge, freedom and prosperity are 
fast covering the earth ; for three centuries past human virtue has been 
steadily increasing, and mankind are fast becoming prepared to receive 
a higher faith ; but in order to build we must first destroy ; not only the 
Syrian superstition, called the Bible, must be attacked,but also the belief 
in a personal God, which can only engender an oriental slavish condition 
of the mind; therefore, these unfounded, untruthful beliefs are injurious 
to human nature, for they lower its dignity, they arrest its development, 
they isolate its affections. There sometimes appear to be some beauti- 
ful sentiments mingled with a faith in a personal God, and horrible 
ones in a belief in a personal devil, so one balances the other, but how- 
ever refined these sentiments may appear they are selfish at the core, 
and if they can be removed they may be replaced by those of a purer 
kind; they cannot be removed without some disturbance and distress, 
yet the sorrows are mostly imaginary, and finally will be salutary and 
sublime. In each preceding generation the human race has been tor- 
tured, that their successors might profit by their woes, and our own 



Popular Superstitions Traced to the Priest. 273 

prosperity, such as it is, is founded on the agonies of the past. Is it 
therefore unjust that we should suffer for the benefit of those who are 
to come after us? Famine, pestilence and war are no longer essential 
to the advancement of the human race, but all signs indicate that a sea- 
sc n of mental anguish and disturbance is in the near future, and through 
this we must pass in order that our posterity may get the benefit of our 
trials. The soul, as relates to its salvation through any atonement, 
must be sacrificed, and all hope of immortality must die; a sweet and 
charming illusion must be taken from the human race, in the same 
sense that youth and beauty vanish after a time, when their purpose is 
served, never to return, so our hopes are only chimerical, and our fears 
groundless. " Amen." 

At the bottom of the last paragraph I wrote the word "Amen," 
which is commonly held to signify the termination or close of any sub- 
ject, but such signification is erroneous, for the word only means " so be 
it.'' I, therefore, shall continue to write, in addition to the preceding, 
such new thoughts as may arise, as long as my physical and mental 
ability is continued to me. I have written some thoughts about some 
gods, and I propose to write some more, that may explain more def- 
initely some indistinct observations before made. When we consider 
how men came to have such firm beliefs in some things about which 
they never have so much as inquired, it will not seem so very strange 
that they are so firmly fixed that much direct and strong proof is 
required to dislodge them; but however strange it may seem, it is that 
which every day's experience confirms, and is not so very wonderful, 
if we consider the way it has been secured by the priests, for it is they 
alone who are at the root of all superstition, and it is to their advantage, 
as much as in them lies, to nourish and perpetuate it. The belief in 
a God, or many Gods, is transmitted from the priest to the parent or 
nurse, or some old woman, who is too ignorant to be able to do more 
than, parrot like, repeat to the feeble intellect of the child that so and 
so, including all observed phenomena, is the act of God, who sees and 
knows everything, and finally, by length of time and the concurrence 
of the community in which the child is born and reared to maturity, such 
instruction grows up to the dignity of a positive principle, for a child's 
mind is as blank and susceptible to impressions as white paper is, so that 
it takes any impression that comes first to its feeble comprehension, and 
as the mind grows and expands with the body, such first impressions are 
confirmed to them, both by the open and declared profession and the 
tacit consent of those they come in contact with in society, or at least by 
those whose wisdom, knowledge and pretended piety are an example to 
them, and who never suffer these superstitious propositions to be other- 



274 The Skeptic's Defense. 

wise mentioned but as the foundation on which they build their religion 
and conduct, and by such means, when they arrive at maturity, they 
have the force of unquestionable truth, and by such a process they 
become incapacitated to reflect, for they cannot find any belief more 
ancient, and these opinions were taught them before their memory 
began to keep a register of their actions, and therefore they scruple not 
to conclude that those propositions, of whose knowledge they can find 
in themselves no original, were most certainly the impress of God upon 
their minds, and were not taught them by any one else, and these they 
afterwards entertain, cultivate and submit to, as they do to their parents, 
with veneration little short of sanctity, not for the same reason, it is 
true, but because, having been so educated and having no remembrance 
of any beginning of these impressions, they conclude them innate or 
natural, having in most cases no time or disposition, for lack of facili- 
ties to examine, there is scarcely any in any community to be found 
who are not content from their ignorance or indifference to take any 
false teachings on trust. And another reason is, who is there so bold 
or so hardy as to dare to contend with the scorn and reproach that is 
everywhere, by the connivance and direction of the priests, prepared for 
those who dare venture to dissent from the received opinions in religious 
matters from their own country or party, and scarcely a man can be 
found in any generation or country who can patiently prepare himself to 
bear the hateful name of infidel, which includes all forms of skepticism 
and even atheism,as every one is sure to who does in the least differ from 
those common opinions, and he will be much more afraid to question 
the commonly received opinions about religion, when he shall regard 
them, as most men do, whether pious or not, the standards set up by 
God in his mind, to be the guide of his conduct as well as his opinions, 
and what can hinder him from thinking them sacred when he finds that 
they are the earliest of all his own thoughts on religion, and also the 
most reverenced by his associates. It is in this way that all 
idolatry has been introduced, and has been afterwards nourished, 
propagated and perpetuated, as well as Judaism or Christianity. If 
you can find any savage so degraded he has no priest, or what is his 
equivalent, you will find there a people who have no more idea of any 
God that an infant has at birth, and until there has been enough experi- 
ence to produce a specimen of their tribe above the average intelligence, 
smart enough to comprehend any observed phenomenon, such as sun- 
rise, day and night, winter and summer, heat and cold, and others like 
them, and seek for a cause, he can only assume a cause, and that is as 
far as the most gifted mortal that has ever lived has been able to go, 
but whether such assumption is false or not, such an individual will rise 



How Temples and Shrines Are Built. 275 

to the dignity of a priest, for he is, by reason of such discovery, or 
assumption, competent for the time to instruct bis associates, and, as 
far as the human family has yet advanced, assumption includes all that 
is known about God, Devil, Heaven, Hell, or any future life, and it is 
all mankind ever will or can know. 

This is all I care to say at present about God, but I will make some 
observations about the worship of God. The most costly and beauti- 
ful temples, devoted in the various countries and forms of religion, to 
the worship of God, are all the product of robbery, perpetrated by the 
various grades of priests of every such form of religion. It always has 
been mournful and sad to see a whole people oppressed and deceived 
in the name of a foolish, useless religion. All these immense treasures 
have been extorted, drop by drop, from the credulity of the poor and the 
ignorant, and are the source and principal cause of all the poverty of the 
masses of mankind, so that the priests of all grades, from the pope down 
to the most beastly monk, may be pampered in luxury, simply and only 
for the reason that they profess and so announce to be the mediators 
between man and some imaginary deity. These poor peasant wretches, 
for all these priests care, may perish by starvation on the floors of the 
most costly mosaic which his own miserable pittance, wrung from him 
by fraud and deception, has helped to create the means to form, while 
ceilings and shrines of inlaid gold and the most precious gems, mock 
his dying eye with useless splendor. These various systems of fraud 
and imposture can only be sustained by the perpetuation- of ignorance 
and superstition, and that furnishes the reason why the priests of all 
religions, oppose science, for knowledge, truth and reason must be 
crushed, because if they all, or even either, prevail, imposture and fraud 
will vanish, and men universally can only be esteerned for their charac- 
ter instead of their opinions, and all men who travel much find as much 
or more of brotherly kindness among the heathen barbarians as among 
the most holy Christians. Much boasting has always been indulged in 
by Protestant Christian missionaries, claiming that Christianity alone, 
without other assistance, has elevated and refined all classes of savages 
in all countries which have had the Christians' Bible introduced among 
them, and the priests of the particular sect which sent the missionary 
among them, to instruct them in its precepts, continually make exag- 
gerated reports, so as to encourage further donations of money, to 
enlarge and continue that particular successful enterprise. None of 
these reports are entitled to any notice, and are for the greater part not 
merely exaggerations, but absolute lies, or, what is no better, refusing 
to give the " Other" Side " a hearing. This other side is given by sea 
captains, sailors and other travelers, and is more than an offset to the 



276 The Skeptic's Defense. 

former highly colored side. A gentleman from Boston, a graduate from 
Cambridge University, who visited California in 1836, and on his way 
there visited the South Pacific and Sandwich Islands, came in contact 
there with the natives, and also with those on the Pacific coast, writes 
thus: " It has been said that the greatest curse to each and all of these 
South Sea Islands was the first white man who discovered it, and every 
one who knows anything of the history of our commerce in those islands 
knows that that statement is a true one; for it is an acknowledged fact 
that white men with their vices have brought in habits and diseases 
before unknown to the islands, which are now sweeping off the natives 
of the Sandwich Islands at the rate of one-fortieth of the whole annually, 
and the curse of a people calling themselves Christians seems to follow 
them everywhere they go. The one vice of intemperance is more than 
an offset to any benefit they ever can get fromjihe missionaries, but that 
is one of the least of the vices in all Christian lands. The enormous 
vice of female prostitution was never heard of before the white man 
introduced and practiced it there, and the same can with truth be said 
of profane swearing, gambling, opium eating, and many other forms of 
Christian vice, such as lying, cheating, murder and robbery. These 
have all followed the missionary, and more than neutralized all his 
boasted good. Besides, why should men of one way of thinking wish 
or be allowed to disturb other men who have always been instructed in 
a very different way than their own, or how dare one set of men intrude 
unasked and undesired upon the long established customs of other men, 
and offer them some substitute for that form of religious belief which 
they try to persuade them to renounce, when they know that such 
renunciation and acceptance inevitably makes of this person a social 
outcast, and results in no benefit to offset such a sacrifice of former con- 
victions. Every missionary is, by reason of his previous course of prep- 
aration to qualify him to aspire to the position of a missionary, unfit to 
understand or comprehend what is the condition of mankind, either in 
a state of nature or in the savage state, or any grade of barbarism above 
those states and below his own, therefore he can form no intelligent 
idea of the simple delights of an uncultivated life, which in all cases are 
commensurate with his capacities of enjoyment, and it is in forgetting or 
else in disregarding this important fact that misleads all those who pre- 
tend to have so much solicitude for the temporal and eternal welfare of 
other men, about whom no' solicitude is required, for a savage state of 
society is not necessarily a miserable state, neither is civilization of any 
grade able alone to impart contentment and prosperity or unmixed hap- 
piness, for the enlarged capacity of these cultivated people require a like 
increase of pleasure to meet such enlarged capacity of enjoyment. 



The Missionaries Are Only a Damage. 277 

Mankind, the world over in all times, are what nature and his oppor- 
tunities or surroundings have made him, and such he will always con- 
tinue to be. To all profound thinkers and moralists it is a serious unde- 
cided question whether the state or condition of the savage, all things 
taken into the account, is not preferable to that of the civilized peasant, 
meaning one who is by that condition compelled to the incessant drudg- 
ery of severe labor, and denied every opportunity of improvement or 
recreation. The savage has no prison and want of money to fear, no 
oppressive, tyrannical lord and master to serve, he is not debased by 
daily seeing many persons above him in riches or honor, he is without 
superior and without servitude, more healthy, vigorous and happy than 
the peasant, enjoys the inestimable satisfaction of liberty and equality so 
vainly boasted by civilized nations, and instead of being preyed upon 
and robbed by Christians, under the false pretence of civilizing them, 
they ought to be protected from their cupidity and avarice, which is 
their only motive by which they are stimulated, when they falsely pre- 
tend, as an excuse for meddling in their affairs, is a desire to civilize and 
Christianize them by giving them a form of religion in no sense superior 
for them than the one they have. All Christian missionaries are vain 
and full of deceit and contempt, and fearfully unjust when they are 
remote and in no fear of being detected. These men, and those that 
send them out, vainly imagine that on this globe there is no part of it, 
no nation, no province, no city and no society as refining and elevating 
as our Presbyterian or our Methodist, Baptist, and what not, is, and 
so they get a secret persuasion that they alone are the first persons in 
the universe, when they really are of no more consequence than so many 
oysters. Who among theologians ever made any useful discoveries in 
the arts or sciences? None of their brains or hands ever formed a plan 
or map of the heavens or the earth, or ever built ships, or palaces, or 
invented any labor saving machine, or dictated laws or benefitted 
society in any way, and yet these theologians will boldly come forward, 
with the most contemptible impudence, and claim to have done all that 
ever has been done to civilize and educate humanity. I say, No ! Science 
and philosophy have polished and civilized mankind, not only without 
any aid from the theologian, but in spite of his opposition. If they had 
been assisted, instead of being hindered by the latter, or even if these 
had remained neutral, society would have been many thousand years 
further advanced than it now is, but it yet is and always has been both 
the policy and the practice of the priests of all forms of religion to keep 
the masses in stupidity and blindness, and to persecute and remove out 
of their way by assassination all those they suspect may open the eyes 
of their dupes. All great men in science and philosophy have one after 



278 The Skeptic's Defense. 

another been reviled, persecuted and oppressed beyond endurance, and 
all their writings destroyed, unless placed beyond their reach, for the 
reason that the priests feared that more or less light might be perceived 
by their dupes, and so in time ignorance and darkness would disappear. 
Such great men at Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Voltaire, and 
others like them, have been and now are held up to scorn and ridicule 
by these contemptible, insignificant religious villians, throughout the 
whole period of Christian history, and the reverse of these men in 
ability, mere noodles in comparison, all have been eulogized and vener- 
ated, sanctified and revered, to the point of disgust. I say they have 
had theiri day. Away with them, for they are nothing but poltroons 
and bigots, fanatics and pedants, enamored by false ideas, for nothing 
is more dangerous to the state than these senseless moral disclaimers, 
who have concentrated all their small minds on one idea,they continually 
repeat what they heard in their infancy from their nurses, incessantly 
urging moderation in our desires and universal extinction of our pas- 
sions, not perceiving that their precepts carried out to their ultimate 
result would prove the ruin of any nation that could be persuaded to 
adopt them, however useful some of them might prove in individual 
and exceptional cases. These narrow minded bigots have got and have 
always had possession of the floor, or what is equivalent, the public ear 
and confidence, and allow no meddling or criticism ; their strong weapons 
are fraud and detraction, and at the same time cultivate and encourage 
credulity, because it is compatible with ignorance. They teach that to 
examine an absurdity is labor, therefore you must believe us without 
investigation or question. When such a disposition is secured, as it 
always is, the most convincing proof of the falsity of any opinion 
advanced by the priests will never have any weight and any dream 
of such priests will be more convincing than reality itself, and 
this is the frame of mind the priests always cultivate in the child, the 
adult, the mature man. What a tremendous force is credulity in any 
religion, for there has never been a time or a people when a monarch, be 
he King, Emperor or Queen, did not seek to shelter themselves from 
all insult or danger from their subjects' wrath by acting in concert and 
subordination to the priesthood, who were able to raise about their 
throne phantoms of superstition and terror to such an extent that the 
priest became master in all but the name; no obstacle was allowed to 
diminish their influence and power. The tyranny of the Egyptian 
priests was terrible, for the sovereigns were all encircled from their 
infancy with the bondage of opinion, for if they had been allowed the 
liberty of investigation they would have discovered that these priests 
were nothing but cheats and mercenary enthusiasts, but instead' of that, 



The Religion of Our Aborigines. 279 

by this process, the sovereigns, when mature, became their slaves and 
victims, and the people, of course, followed their example, and easily 
became mere slaves and victims of the priests and king, and in this way 
all Egypt fell prostrate at the feet of the pontiff, and superstition, and 
such has been the condition of all humanity, in all time and all lands, 
and will continue to be as long as superstition and ignorance can be 
made to thrive at the continued and persistent demand of the priests. 

The American Indians are better known, in reference to their 
religious and other peculiarities than any other savage tribes in foreign 
lands, and of course they are divided into many tribes or separate com- 
munities, but notwithstanding this fact they are essentially the same in 
their religious belief. They have no priests, as we understand that term, 
but the one who represents such an office to them is their medicine man. 
These belong to no order separate from the others, but include only such 
as have become famous for their success in curing maladies and discov- 
ering suitable remedies and nostrums to relieve pain and heal wounds 
and such like accomplishments. These are reinforced from time to 
time, as death causes vacancies, and the initiation of a new member is 
done in a general dance called the medicine dance. These new members 
are selected by reason of their superior or natural endowments in the 
line of medicine, and are supposed to have such on account of some 
favor shown them by the Great Spirit. When fully initiated, and after 
sufficient practice has demonstrated his abilities to- entitle him to this 
honor, they become in a certain sense both priest and prophet, but not 
in a sense we give to those words, because a priest never attempts to do 
more than relieve or cure bodily diseases, and a prophet never does more 
than try to instruct or restrain the vicious. None of the tribes in their 
aboriginal state have more than a vague, indistinct notion of any future 
life, and what they have is the result of dreams, for they reason that the 
sleep of the body, being similar to death,while it lasts and as in that sleep 
there is conscious activity of the mental faculty, so in the final sleep of 
death the soul continues alive and active in the same pursuits that were 
common to the body when they were in unison. They get these inter- 
pretations from the medicine men, consequently they have no hope of 
reward or fear of retribution, nothing but a faint hope of a continuation 
of such conditions as are had in this life,so that they have and universally 
exercise a strong appreciation of the great fundamental virtues of a 
natural religion. The adoration of the Great Spirit, brotherly love, 
parental and filial affection, honesty, temperance and chastity carried to 
extremes, because they are taught than any infringement of these car- 
dinal virtues will draw down punishment in this life, because they will 
thus incur the anger of the Great Spirit. Such is a brief outline of the 



280 The Skeptic's Defense. 

aborigines of America, but this outline has become seriously disturbed 
and marred by the contact they have been compelled to have with white 
Christian missionaries and others, for those who know their present con- 
dition best, because they have lived among them many years i uniformly 
certify that such vices as lying, stealing, cheating, intemperance, gam- 
bling and female prostitution, before unknown among them, are now 
fearfully prevalent, so that if in some directions improvement can be 
shown, in others a like or greater degradation is more than an offset to 
such improvement. It is easy enough to put on and habitually wear. a 
long, solemn face, make long prayers, eat sacramental bread and drink 
sacramental wine, in the name of a crucified Saviour, for this is all done 
by the most damnable robbers and oppressors the world has ever con- 
tained, for thousands of these men in times past have fattened on the 
unpaid toil of the outcast and imbruted slaves, and have sold them by 
the millions on the auction block, to raise the money to not only sup- 
port the gospel at home, but to send swarms of missionaries to foreign 
lands to try and convert a few foreign heathen, encompassing both sea 
and land to make a few proselytes, and making them by such a process 
a thousand fold more the children of hell than they were in a natural 
state, by teaching them the vices which fester and thrive unopposed in 
all Christian lands. Outwardly, in this country, by the death of slavery, 
by the most bloody and sanguinary war the world has ever known in 
modern times, some of these odious practices have been abolished, but 
the quality and animus of the former slave holder is yet as it always was, 
which is the right and duty for the strong to oppress and trample upon 
the weak. The Christianity of the former slave holders now means the 
same as it always did, which was and is the right to appropriate by one 
man, the strongest of the two, the faculties and labors of another man 
to his own use, and to pass and enforce laws that reduce him to the 
level of the brute, to deny him education or any domestic or social rela- 
tions, and although they cannot now sell him into slavery, and separate 
families, they can and do universally rob him of every, political right and 
degrade him by enacting and enforcing laws that discourage him from 
ever aspiring to that degree of mental ability to realize what true free- 
dom is. 

In all the abominable, outrageous charges that has been made in 
what has before been written in this book, nothing has yet been 
revealed in reference to the attitude of the Christianity of American 
churches towards negro slavery, in comparison to what has been written 
in reference to the inquisition, or holy office, as it is connected with 
Christianity. Nothing is any more horrible, or more in conflict with a 
true appreciation of what any form of religion that professes to elevate 



The Priests Never Heard of American Slavery. 281 

and civilize humanity is, but applies with equal or greater force to the 
church in its connection and defence of American slavery, while it 
. existed, or before the war of 1861, consequently a dark, horrible page is 
yet to be unfolded, for they have for two hundred and fifty years literally 
broken not only the bond man and woman's skin and bones, but also 
their hearts, to get not only sacramental but all other bread, and poured 
out his blood to buy sacramental and other wine. The conversion of 
the heathen to such a religion, or any other person, instead of indicating 
any progress in the cause of justice, freedom or civilization, or furnish- 
ing any cause of congratulation, is only a sure sign 01 moral degeneracy, 
ecclesiastical blindness and Pharisaical malignity. It has insinuated 
itself into the heart's blood of the whole Christian church. North as 
well as South, and it also has diffused its poisonous, disorganizing 
leaven through all the great institutions of benevolence, and constantly 
gags and intimidates the few pulpits whose ministers had the courage 
to speak a few seasonable words for freedom. In their prayer meetings 
they never dared to allude in the most distant manner to the subject of 
slavery, because they pretended they never heard of such a thing as 
oppression in this free land, but they did hear a great deal about it in all 
missionary reports from the South Sea Islands, Africa, India, and other 
distant heathen regions, but not in Christian America. It is easy for the 
hypocrites to preach and pray about idolatry,, persecution and distress 
among the heathen of the old world, and sing about breaking chains of 
error in such absurd foolish hymns as this, "From Greenland's icy moun- 
tains, * * * they call us to deliver their land from error's chain," 
and all such like fol de rol, when all they do is to fasten on them a more 
horrible superstition in exchange for the one they seek to break and 
remove, as well as monstrous vices before unknown. 

The tricks and deceptions of the priests in all varieties of religion are 
directly calculated to fill the minds of all sensible non-religious men with 
the most unutterable disgust and indignation,for their only value or utility 
to those who invent these pretended miracles is to fill the ignorant, indo- 
lent and indifferent masses with supreme awe and reverence for a reality, 
or seeming one, that does not exist. History is full of these disclosures 
of fraud and villany. At one of the great battles of Napoleon in Italy, 
that of Arsona, fought on the 10th of February, 1797, the image of 
wood or stone of the Virgin Mary, carried at the head of the column of 
the army of the pope, when she saw that the French were victorious, 
shed tears in the sight of the defeated and victorious Catholic soldiers, 
and when after the defeat this image was captured and examined it was 
discovered that these imitation tears were only a string of glass beads, so 
arranged as to be moved by clock work in the head of the image. 



282 The Skeptic's Defense. 

This incident is only one of multitudes of the like nature, and is referred 
to in this place to show that suspicion is justifiable when any unnatural 
scene is enacted, calculated to impress the ignorant and superstitious 
multitude with fear and reverence for the sacredness of the holy office 
of the priests. Such mummeries as these have in all past time been the 
reliance of the priesthood of Christianity, at least to fortify and perpetu- 
ate fraud, superstition and imposture, while such great men as Bona- 
parte, rising above, encouraging or assisting these mummeries, occu- 
pied his great talents in overthrowing these obstacles to human pro- 
gress, and liberating the people from the odious tyranny and oppression 
of the pope, by, in a large degree, limiting his power and exposing his 
hypocrisy, and as soon as the struggles of the war necessary to secure 
these results enabled hin> to employ his armies for such a beneficient 
purpose, he projected and built permanent roads through every part of 
France and Italy, also extensive canals and bridges, dry docks, harbors, 
hospitals and institutions of learning, art and science. All these import- 
ant things had been for a thousand years entirely suspended or neglected 
in all Europe, as the result of the triumph of Christianity over paganism, 
as it existed at Rome, and avouM never have been revived if the power of 
the church had not thus been weakened, and compelled to obey superior 
physical force. Without doubt, religion is a principle so firmly fixed 
and fortified in the heart of man, that it will be next to impossible to 
remove it or perceptibly weaken it, but many reasons can be urged in 
favor of the continuation of the present system of organized Christian 
congregations, for it must not be supposed that all or even a majority of 
pew holders, and thus sustainers of Christian worship, are church mem- 
bers, for if only church members supported the church organizations 
they would very speedily die for want of means to keep them alive, 
and to erect their costly houses of worship, for it is considered essential 
to decorate and beautify internally church edifices so as to make them 
attractive, to secure the patronage of the rich, who are the chief depend- 
ence, however irreligious they may be. These indifferent persons only 
go to church for social and for business reasons, but still they consti- 
tute the main reliance in all churches, for the financial and business 
energy to keep them alive. There is therefore to this class of persons no 
greater bore than to be compelled, by simply going there to be amused, 
to be obliged to listen to long, uninteresting sermons, for no one but a 
preaching minister has the impudence to compel an audience to sit still 
for an hour or more and be tormented with his absurd platitudes and 
untruths, so monstrous as to need to be answered on the spot by inter- 
ruptions, and thus be compelled to yield a seeming assent to whatever 
such minister chooses to put before him, merely because he is supposed 



The Permanence of Christianity Doubted. 283 

to be too sacred and learned to admit of doubt as to his sincerity or 
honesty, when in most cases the minister is filled with vanity to hear his 
own voice, and his sermon is the most delicate and refreshing morsel of 
his whole life, and his chief means of self-exaltation. 

Nothing is more distinctly manifest to the attentive observers of cur- 
rent events in the religious world than the confident boasting of their 
priests and theologians of every degree of authority, as to the security 
and permanence of Christianity. This is paraded and emphasized by 
these bigots on every public occasion, both by oral speech and in their 
printed documents, such as magazines and religious newspapers, and 
such boasts are commonly accompanied by sneers and taunts at the 
puny efforts of the few insignificant skeptics who endeavor to attack and 
hope to finally weaken and destroy Christianity. Such a state of things 
finds its parallel or counterpart in the impregnable security some 
nations pretend to feel, and to boast of, when they have strongly forti- 
fied all the approaches to their sea coast, and have erected strong forts 
and castles at every assailable point about their capitol in the interior, 
organized a strong army and navy to protect their inhabitants and com- 
merce; but, notwithstanding all these preparations and precautions, 
many nations have been overwhelmed and destroyed by some so consid- 
ered inferior nation, in ancient times and in our own times; the strongest 
fortifications known to history, Sebastopol and Gibraltar, have been 
assailed and taken by assault, and either destroyed by the conqueror or 
strengthened and defended so as to defy any future attacking force. A 
similar condition has been many times met with in the history of the 
Christian church, which, after its security and supposed unassailable 
perpetuity had been established, as its founders fondly hoped or 
dreamed, when it had so far triumphed over the pagan systems with 
which it had struggled for more than three hundred years, so^ as to in 
turn become the masters and persecutors, and get a head or pope in the 
person of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, who was the most das- 
tardly murderer and tyrant the world has ever known, and from that 
time gradually established all inferior grades of ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
and power, and organize and consolidate priestly power and influence, 
whose object and result was to brutalize and degrade the masses, and 
while appropriating to themselves and concentrating in themselves all 
the learning in theological speculations attainable, and at the same time 
making it impossible for the masses to be other than a superstitious and 
ignorant rabble, so that, having the strong arm of the civil power to 
rely on, they could and did defy any and all interference, and for more 
that a thousand years no serious outside interference was possible, or 
was had, to cause any apprehension of weakness, much less of destruc- 



284 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tion, till the time of the reformation begun by Luther in the seventeenth 
century; and that movement merely operated to divide, but not materi- 
ally weaken, Christianity as a whole, and in some respects it, in its 
final results, rather strengthened Christianity, and only weakened 
Romanism or popery, and that was further weakened by internal divi- 
sions and strife, till in the present century it got its death blow, from 
which it never can recover, when Napoleon Bonaparte, on the seventh 
day of May, 1809, decreed the temporal power of the pope ended; and 
for that decree Bonaparte was excommunicated from the church in a 
written document called a " bull," which act caused Bonaparte to seize 
the pope and carry him a prisoner to Paris, and hold him a prisoner 
more than three years, and would have forever prevented him or any 
person in his name, or by the authority of the Roman Catholic church, 
from ever receiving his title or his authority as head of the church, if 
combined Europe had not released him and destroyed his master, but 
that death of popery at that time begun, and he has been gradually 
sinking, as the king of Italy by the assistance of Garabaldi 
has taken from the pope all the states of the church 
in Italy, over which till that time the pope had a show of 
civil power by courtesy or mere politeness, but in 1832 the pope 
was compelled to vacate these states, and relinquish every remnant of 
his temporal power in Rome itself, and consent to be a mere prisoner 
in the palace of the Vatican till such times as the king of Italy or his 
successor decides to himself enter into full possession, which will 
undoubtedly be when the present pope, Leo thirteenth, dies, and the 
next pope, if it is possible to elect another, which some doubt, will have to 
choose some other country than Italy to dwell in, and as no country in 
Europe is available, he must reside in free America; and here he can 
be only tolerated as long as he minds his own business, and refrains 
from meddling with political or secular affairs. Now all these and many 
more interruptions have disturbed in the past the tranquility and inter- 
fered with the determination of the church to get and keep universal 
dominion, not only over the souls but over the bodies and all posses- 
sions of the whole human race, for that has always been the ambition 
and the cause of all missionary efforts, to extend and establish Christ- 
ianity all over the world, and by hypocritically pretending all the time 
that these movements had the laudable object to convert and save the 
souls of men. 

What a disgraceful burlesque the history of the popes furnish, of 
which the masses of men are and always have been ignorant. Every- 
body must admit that for any important movement to succeed, perfect 
unity and harmony is imperative, especially among the head managers, 



Christianity Slowly But Surely Declining. 285 

who claims divine right and trace their right back to Christ himself. But 
how has it been with this vile nest of popes, who have or pretend to have 
succeeded each other back to St. Peter himself, who was appointed pope 
by Jesus Christ, when he gave him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, 
and told him that he was the rock on which he proposed to erect his 
church. A reference to history discloses that at one period the church 
had no pope for a considerable period, at another time they were 
cursed with a female pope, whose sex was only discovered when she 
clothed in male attire, and on horseback gave birth to a male infant;- 
at another time there were three popes, each claiming to be genuine, 
and these rival claims had to be determined by the secular arm or civil 
laws. At another time the pope had to flee to Avignon, in France, to 
avoid the fury of his Roman subjects for many years, till a change in 
civil rulers restored him again to his Roman home; and besides all 
these disturbances and interruptions of peace and harmony, endless doc- 
trinal contentions and divisions, requiring universal councils to harmon- 
ize some disputes, and secure conformity and obedience among inferior 
orders of priests, and finally the entire irrecoverable loss of all temporal 
power and possessions, when the king of Italy decides to enter into pos- 
session of the Vatican, makes the prospect of extending this vile system 
over the whole earth look very discouraging ; for when you consider the 
increase of population now on earth, Christianity, instead of gaining 
anything, is gradually but surely losing, both in number and power, but 
in order to deceive the people as to numbers, they, in their returns, 
include the whole population in Christian lands, men, women and chil- 
dren, instead of actual communicants, thus gaining more than one-half, 
and among pagans they count as many as necessary to make it seem 
worth while to continue to proselyte in that country. In all highly civ- 
ilized and enlightened countries, like Germany, France, England, and 
the United States of America, where ignorance is on the decrease, and 
consequently intelligence is on the increase, science has progressed far 
enough in some directions, such as geology, botany, astronomy, and 
some others, to demonstrate that theology is not only no science, as its 
votaries claim it is, but instead it is absolutely false in all its fundamental 
principles, and that fact permits skepticism to assail theology and divide 
into many sects and branches all Protestant Christians, who, instead of 
being an aid to advance the general cause, are nothing but a hinderance, 
for their dissensions and divisions promote antagonism among the lead- 
ers, and confusion among the masses, and both encourages and causes 
skepticism,doubt and distrust,and finally ends in causing these conflicting 
sects to pull apart and destroy each other, encouraging by this division 
the various forms of infidelity to thrive, and attack this divided Christ- 



286 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ian army at many weak points. When a skillful military commander, 
in encountering an enemy in war, finds such enemy strongly fortified 
and guarded by an army more numerous and better equipped than his 
own, rather than expose his own army to destruction by a direct attack, 
he chooses to destroy his enemy by stratagem, and while making a bold 
demonstration and a seeming purpose to risk an encounter on the open 
field, he secretly employs a force of sappers and miners to excavate a 
suitable approach, and deposit such a quantity of explosives under the 
fort he is assailing, as to cause its sudden destruction, together with all 
the force of men and materials within it, and all such warfare is consid- 
ered by the laws of all nations legitimate, and is used by both contend- 
ing forces when circumstances favor such use, and results in a grand 
victory by an inferior force when defeat would have been sure if a battle 
had been openly fought. One of the strongest forts of Christianity, and 
perhaps the strongest, is the Bible, for all the minor or inferior strong- 
holds have originated and been constructed out of the material extracted 
from its pages. That supposed unassailable fortress has had undisputed 
possession of the Jewish and Christian civilization ever since it had a 
being, till within perhaps the last one hundred years, because of its 
alleged divine origin and it mysterious disclosures, and hence nobody 
was critical enough to try to find any error in the Bible, and when 
found was bold enough to announce and point out such discovery, and 
all commentators were allowed unopposed to interpret and harmonize its 
conflicting statements as to himself, or to those who employed him to do 
this work, seemed best suited to accomplish the end sought to be estab- 
lished, and that was in all cases to remove every doubt, if any existed, 
and to prevent all doubt, if any was expected, as to its absolute divine 
origin, its exact truth and its permanent continuance as long as time 
lasts, and the impossibility of ever discovering any flaw or error in either 
its statements or its conclusions. This state of things is rapidly disap- 
pearing, and the chief business of theologians of the present is to be 
both active and earnest in its defence. Skepticism, like orthodoxy, is 
divided into many forms, and is consequently not able to meet ortho- 
doxy in open warfare, because, however much they differ on non-essen- 
tials, as they modestly call these sectarian disputes, they are all -united 
to defend the main fortification, for on their success in doing that their 
whole existence depends; but while no open, direct attack, in the open 
field of controversy, is considered the best generalship, the sappers 
and miners are all the while at work, and when the mine is ready the 
explosion will come and the rotten fabric will be consigned to its proper 
place, to inculcate morality, if any can be extracted from it, and cease 
to cultivate superstition, fraud and deception. 



The Bibles More Numerous Than All Books Besides. 287 

When we consider the manner in which the Bible of the Jew was 
produced, and the immense sums of money which have been spent since 
it emerged from the manuscript or written form in which the Jews pre- 
served their history and recorded their laws, and has since passed into 
the printed form, as soon as the art of printing by movable types was 
invented, there can be no mystery that it still exists, but in its present 
form it is sadly mutilated. There is no risk of exaggeration when we 
assert that more copies of the Bible have been printed and sold for 
more money than is true of any thousand other books in their numer- 
ous editions that can be named, to say nothing of the unnumbered 
thousands that have been given away. Unlike every other book, whose 
author retained its copyright and controlled its sale, there never was 
any copyright on the Bible, so that as many publishers as chose to could 
publish and sell the Bible, illustrated or not; no person, not a Jew priest, 
has or ever had an original manuscript copy of the Hebrew old testa- 
ment, and they therefore claim with much justice that no Bible but the 
Hebrew one is genuine, and they assert that no Christian has any more 
right to its use, to mix it with their new testament, than they have to 
use the Koran of Mahomet or any other sacred book of antiquity, and 
more especially to translate it into Greek, English or any other language, 
for the reason that such translation is impossible without destroying 
any claim to inspiration or revelation, which the Christian asserts it 
now has; and no such claim was ever set up by the Jews, therefore the 
claim of inspiration is without any force. As has before been shown, no 
translation from ;one language to another is possible, so as to accurately 
convey the meaning of the first author, and the pretension of the Christ- 
ian theologian that God has superintended the various translations and 
revisions, so that no error or ambiguity is possible, has no force, for the 
work itself is full of error and contradiction, which only requires very 
superficial examination to reveal; and what must be its condition when 
it is put into the various languages that are reached by the missionaries, 
who themselves in many cases invent a language, and instruct the sav- 
age, who is entirely destitute of any mind to comprehend the want of 
language, and then advance him so that finally he can read what the 
missionary puts before him, and he puts before him a Bible of his own 
invention, and who is able to detect such an imposition? And this 
whole missionary farce is a monstrous injustice, and the great wonder is 
that they are not all exterminated, and they soon would be if they were 
not protected by the civil laws or treaties between commercial nations. 
What a monstrous absurdity that we, who live in this land of liberty, 
in the close of the 19th century, should still consent to be bound to con- 
sider the old testament inspired of God! It was written about four 



288 The Skeptic's Defense. 

thousand years ago, and is allegory, mythology, history and prophecy, 
poetry and proverbs, by a set of men who were but half civilized, and 
knew nothing of science or art. 

Many persons, including some of my own family, have and still do 
regard me and my writings with a sort of curiosity bordering on c. m- 
tempt, simply because, after an active, laborious life, reaching the 
advanced age of seventy-five years, and being myself conscious c,f a 
waning of my vital energies, I chose to retire from active business, and 
devote a large portion of my remaining time and strength, to intel- 
lectual pursuits, and to such amusements and social enjoyments as I 
could find, as a partial recompense of having till now been denied these 
opportunities, and to spend much time in serious reflections upon the 
great problem of the ends and aims of man's existence; and I have often 
felt, when writing these imperfect thoughts, to lament the small ability 
I have, to use suitable sarcastic language to convey my unutterable 
scorn and contemptible hate of such a vile nest of despoilers of the 
truths of science as the priests are, and wished I could deal them a 
blow whose echo should reach posterity, and warn the world after the 
hand that wrote it was crumbled into dust; for age, by its destructive 
mandate, will soon consign this feeble frame to oblivion, and very likely 
what he has written also ; for if any class of mortals must be isolated, or 
avoided, for giving free utterance or writing what he considers truth, 
but the others are just as certain is only error, it ought to be only the 
old, whose pilgrimage is very nearly at an end, for the young ought 
never to have so dark and melancholy experience added to such other 
burdens as they must unavoidably carry. 

Perhaps it is a reasonable requirement, if not a duty, that an unbe- 
liever in Christianity, especially one that once believed in it thoroughly, 
as it is held and taught by orthodoxy, should state . clearly both what he 
does not believe, as I have done on page 239, and also what he does 
believe, as I have also done on page 246. These, two statements, 
taken together, compose or define what is commonly understood by the 
word atheist, or materialist. When an orthodox priest attempts to 
describe an atheist, he always purposely misrepresents and misstates the 
atheist's position, with reference to his conception of God, and he talks 
somewhat in this way: "Atheism, although a pleasing theme for a 
critical argument over a champagne supper, is but a poor staff to lean 
upon when the worn out traveler approaches the mysterious portals of 
the unknown land. He had refused to believe in a personal God, he had 
scoffed at the idea that there was any deity to whom the individual can 
appeal in the hour of grief or trouble, with the hope of separate mercy 
or grace, but now that he has in his unbelief floated away from the 



The Atheist Outrageously Misrepresented. 289 

shores of life, and feels himself borne away on the irrestible current to 
that mysterious other side," what does he not now believe in, for I must 
now settle this question. I dare not think of any future, besides, what 
can come? I know there is nothing; have I not heard that demon- 
strated by smarter men than I am? Yes! I know there is nothing, 
after one short pang, any more than there is pain in the nerve of a tooth 
when the tooth is gone. Such is the orthodox statement. Not one 
word of any such argument is ever used by any genuine or real atheist, 
meaning one who has graduated from orthodoxy into atheism as I have. 
The faith of the most earnest orthodox Christian in the future life, is 
faint and unsatisfactory when compared with the absence of any faith 
whatever in reference to a future life, for I have had both of these experi- 
ences, therefore I am able to judge as to their relative value. A genuine 
atheist reasons in this way: We do not fear death, because it is inev- 
itable, nor do we fear life; we believe that it is easier for some people 
to be good, or to become good, than for others, and that a hope of a 
future existence is no benefit, and that a true conception of God excludes 
such a hope, and that science forbids such hope; therefore, no resurrec- 
tion of human individuals is possible, and immortality is only a hum- 
bug of a diseased imagination, and as to any heaven or hell as a dwell- 
ing place of individuals, the science of astronomy destroys forever and 
finally any such hope or fear. We do not believe that once everything 
was good and perfect in this world, and that all evils came into the 
world through man's fault, although many' of them did; and therefore 
man can repair these evils, but not so far as to reach absolute perfection 
in any body or anything. We do not think that every good deed finds 
its proper reward, or every evil deed its proper punishment, or ever can. 
We neither know, or ought we to care, either where we came from or 
whither we go. We only know that we are here, on this insignificant 
planet, and that we must take things as they are, and that we ought to 
do our best in everything, as in doing this we are happy, as far as hap- 
piness reasonably can be expected to be reached by. man. In social as 
well as in political things we believe there must be order and liberty 
combined. We believe that love, as commonly understood, when we 
are separated from filial or parental love or esteem, is nothing but sex- 
ual lust, or preference for a particular individual, and that the love of 
God is imaginary bosh. We believe that man is not born only to suffer, 
nor only to labor, but he ought to enjoy what he reasonably can in the 
present life, and many other such things. Any species of delusion, but 
more particularly religious delusion, when it assumes the advanced form 
of fanaticism, should teach us, among its other moral traits, that the 
influential classes in any community, and those who take upon them- 



290 The Skeptic's Defense. 

selves to be leaders of the people, are fully as liable as are those whom 
they lead to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the mad- 
dest mob. But alas! Where shall I find one who will dare to print 
this work of mine — a censor who will not expunge its most objection- 
able, passages; or, if printed, a bookseller who will venture to offer so 
bold a work to his customers. It is not, I grant, what I would have 
made it, if I had more education and more ability, but imperfect as it is, 
it may help some few to comprehend its intent as well as a more elabor- 
ate work. 

It has been found necessary, in former pages of this work, to allude 
in a critical manner to the Bible, and this has been necessary because on 
it has been constructed two of the most extensive and influential relig- 
ious systems with which we are familiar. These are the Jewish, founded 
entirely on the old testament, and entirely ignoring the new testament, 
and the Christian, who invented the new testament and added it to the 
old, and uses both, and at the same time regards the Jew as not entitled 
to any share in the scheme of redemption. Among all the commenta- 
tors who have from time to time endeavored to ascertain who were the 
authors 'of any of the many detached portions that together make up the 
Bible, nothing positive or conclusive has ever yet been discovered, but 
probability, or even possibility, is as near certainty as has yet been dis- 
covered, and in fact it is a question of small moment, but whoever the 
writer was who wrote the first five books of the old testament, it is evi- 
dent to us who live in this enlightened age of the world that he wrote 
a false account of the creation, and of the whole matter of which such 
account treats, such as the fall of man, the flood, and many others like 
them, and consequently the writer was not divinely directed, or, as we 
say, inspired, for at the time at which orthodox chronology asserts this 
account was written, no person understood anything about astronomy, 
or physiology, or geology, or natural philosophy, and as they felt 
obliged to find some way to explain the origin of material things and 
natural phenomena, the mode he adopted satisfied such of his contem- 
poraries as were disposed to inquire, and crude and imperfect as it was, 
and still is, it has usurped and held the place of actual fact by all men 
who found their religion upon the Bible, and who have enough interest 
in such matters to inquire, and much easier than to pursue any inquiry, 
so as to arrive at any more satisfactory a result and it ought not to 
surprise any person that such is the case, for do we not, alike, the 
learned and unlearned, yet speak and write of sunrise and sunset, when 
we absolutely know, because astronomy has clearly proved and demon- 
strated that our sun is stationary, as to orbit, but moveable as to its 
revolution, consequently sunrise and sunset should be regarded and 



Science Has Proved Revelation False. 291 

described as reappearing in the morning and disappearing in the even- 
ing, in consequence of the rotary motion of the earth. The ancients, 
up to a short time ago, knew nothing of all this, for they, up to the 
time of Galileo, in, the fifteenth century, or about four hundred years 
ago, believed and taught that the earth was flat and stationary, having 
neither orbit or rotation, but ascribed all motion to the moveable sun 
and planets, to explain day and night, and it never has been disclosed 
hew the ancients explained the changes of the seasons, or the variations 
of the length of day and night, which then, as now, were always uniform. 
The modern science of evolution has caused the creation of all mate- 
rial things, including man and animals, to appear still more absurd and 
untruthful, and that of woman the most foolish of all, for the statement 
" in the image of God created he him," man, " male and female, created 
he them," animals, shows clearly that the distinction of sex was just as 
feasible and proper in one form of animal as another, if you insist upon 
maintaining the theory of the scripture of a special creative act of the 
almighty ; but if evolution is permitted to explain the origin of all things, 
it sets aside! the need of any creative mind or fiat of almighty power, 
and at this point arises a conflict so important and far reaching as to 
oblige the advocates of a special theory of creation to prove their posi- 
tion, instead of as merely they have done in all former times, assuming, 
a false and untenable one. Science, in both geometry and astronomy, 
has long ago proved some part of the Bible false in its teaching as to 
chronology or time, geology has also demonstrated it false; evolution is 
yet a new science in comparison with others, consequently it has not yet 
far enough advanced to clearly prove ail its premises, but enough has 
been already proved and recorded by Darwin and Spencer in physiology 
to show the impossibility of the special creation theory, and when that is 
removed from the Bible you may as well dismiss the rest, for' a divine 
authorship of a revelation is not both true in some things and false in 
others, or capable of authorizing his secretary to so write as to contra- 
dict himself. The real truth is, and ever has been, the majority of man- 
kind as a whole in past times, and largely in the present time, like child- 
hood in all times and places, is amused but not instructed by fables, 
hence their ignorance and stupidity causes them to believe that this 
great array of worlds was made for the contemptible purpose of revolv- 
ing around our little insignificant planet, and all the glittering, circles 
of the stars made to serve no better end than to enliven a dreary winter 
night. Such a course is both pursued and recommended by the priest, 
because, it is the easiest way to get over the difficulty, for it requires less 
study or thought. Even that great geometrician, Pythagorus, who 
lived and died six hundred years before our era began, although he 



292 The Skeptic's Defense. 

approached nearest to the true idea of the motion of the heavenly bodies, 
and of the spherical shape of the earth, of any ancient philosopher, 
became bewildered and lost in the wilderness of error by which he was 
surrounded, and the fierce opposition of the pagan priesthood. He had 
studied nature so much that he rejected the dogmas of his priests and 
those of the Mosaic testaments, for he considered that by listening to 
the voice of nature speaking to the ear of reason, he was in no danger 
of error. He left on record this sentence: " The Mosaic record, or tes- 
tament, asserts that God made the heavens and the earth in six days, but 
they bear no marks of such a creation, for their course is eternal; and 
as to appointing the sun to no higher mission than to give light to this 
speck of matter we call earth, had the almighty called me to his counsel 
I would have taught him a wiser plan of producing day and night. Put 
a wire through an orange, fasten it obliquely so it can revolve, set a 
lamp to represent the sun, cause the orange to revolve towards the 
light, and the true cause of day and night is revealed." But even he 
was not yet enough freed from superstition, and did not live long 
enough to realize the full importance of his discoveries, but ho looked 
as I look upon all religions, as formed to impose upon the 
unlearned masses of men, and he as well as I learned and was forced 
to adopt the policy of conforming to the prejudices of mankind among 
whom we are obliged to live, and depend on coming generations to do 
tardy justice to our memory, for no man of science has ever been able 
to wholly escape from the nets spread around him by his greatest 
enemy, the Christian church. Nature arranges all her movements in 
circles, more or less exact, therefore the canopy over us we call the sky 
is, or appears to us to be, a circular dome intersecting a circular horizon. 
The earth a convex ball, and each small atom that floats in the sunbeam 
so as to become visible to our eyes, is of a globular form. The seasons 
roll a perpetual round, and as a circle has no beginning or end so must 
the material universe be eternal, because nature is forever an active prin- 
ciple,whose changes neither add to or detract from the original matter of 
the universe, and while she resists intrusion into her secrets, she still will 
permit science to inquire, and if able to have enough patience she will 
reveal as much as is required to satisfy the limited capacity to receive 
of the present human understanding, and reserve a more complete dis- 
closure for the future better developed man. Every human being, not 
an idiot or insane, has some faint indistinct conception or impression of 
a supreme being, called, for want of a more sensible name, God. The 
conception of this being, or if you please nonentity, which the atheist 
has, destroys that attribute on- which the Christian rests his chief reli- 
ance to make his God attractive to men, which is the invention of the 



Love Necessary to Prove the Atonement. 293 

writer of the fourth gospel of the new testament, whoever that was is yet 
uncertain, namely, a God of love. No Jewish writer before this one, if 
he turns out to be a Jew, had ever regarded the one God, in any 
other manner than an angry or avenging God, both jealous and 
suspicious, who would only exercise mercy, if at all, in return for long, 
earnest and patient supplication and strict obedience to all his command- 
ments and precepts, and the Jews still adhere to such a conception of 
Gcd, and imagine that sentiment named love, when it is applied to any 
other object than one's children or parents, as only the invention of the 
Christian's fictitious new testament writer, who, like all writers of fiction, 
monstrously exaggerate what is only a malady engendered by an effem- 
inate idleness, and fostered by a sickly imagination and extravagant 
descriptions of human beauty or talent, that is never found real, and 
ends in the most dismal disappointment. The first three gospel writers 
failed to discover this foolish attribute of either God or his son, but the 
fourth, who wrote a long time after the others, made love the leading 
element of his God's character, so as to give stability to the newly dis- 
covered doctrine of the atonement, for to elaborate and complete so 
absurd a doctrine the attribute of love was required, to do away with 
its opposite hate which the God of the Jews not merely had, but continu- 
ally exercised in all his dealings with; them, and ended by wholly dis- 
persing them among all nations, causing their extinction, only as indi- 
viduals. This absurd doctrine of the atonement is a favorite theme for 
pulpit eloquence, and it must be admitted it is a very cunning invention 
of the theologians on whom the priests of all Protestants rely, but 
shrewd as it is, no doctrine of that species of fraud is more absurd and 
untruthful than it is, but false as it is, it is still the very ground work or 
foundation stone, the loss of which- would destroy the whole system of 
Christianity; hence its defense is fierce and persistent by. a certain class of 
men in each orthodox sect, which, while not the whole, yet is the greater 
part of their priesthood and theologians; but now there begins to 
appear some noted theologians, who are so able and efficient scholars 
that any theological institutions are anxious to secure their services, 
and put them at the very head of such bodies, who are independent and 
bold enough to take and advocate advanced positions, and able enough 
to defend them against all opponents. Among these is the distinguished 
scholar who now is at the head of the Union Theological Seminary of 
New York, a Presbyterian institution, who boldly declares that the 
Bible contains many errors, and that its authors had no claim to divine 
guidance more than others, and that no prophet has ever predicted any 
future event; and Professor Brig-gs is now undergoing his trial for 
heresy, and its result is sure to divide the sect in which he teaches, and 



294 The Skeptic's Defense. 

if not extinguish it will greatly weaken it. Another similar trial is now 
in progress, charging one Smith, who is a theological professor of a 
Presbyterian theological seminary in Cincinnati, who not only coincides 
with Professor Briggs, but goes further, and is more radical than he, 
and now just at this time, February, 1894, the great Hebrew scholar 
who was the head of the venerable Yale College in New Haven for many 
years, but is now at the head of a new theological seminary in Chicago, 
the largest and best endowed that this country has ever produced, is at 
this very time engaged in writing and in delivering publicly a series of 
lectures whose design and effect is to destroy the Holy Bible of the 
Christian world. This is the great world wide and universally known 
Dr. Harper, and he is engaged, as the secular papers announce, in the 
dissemination of instruction in these lectures, that while only professing 
to criticise, he is really undermining the foundation on which the Bible 
rests, and that is its divine origin, and its exact, perfect truth, and the 
effect of this will be to sap the faith and belief of the Christian world, 
because his reputation and universally acknowledged superiority as a 
theologian and a scholar entitles him to belief, and challenges adverse 
criticism, and his demonstrations destroy all the vitality on which the 
Bible rests for authority, and a few more of these lectures, of the gen- 
eral drift and tenor of those already delivered in public, and there will 
be nothing left, of the word of God, if indeed he do not abolish God 
altogether, and turn atheist. He has already shown, this secular paper 
of Chicago, March 14, 1894, says, that the Mosaic account in Genesis of 
the creation is a mere fiction, built up out of the fertile imagination of 
some unknown writer, and that no such an event ever could or ever 
did occur, and that a creative act per se, or of itself, the making of some- 
thing out of nothing, belongs to the realm of final causes, and therefore 
can have no realization in the human mind, and this is an affirmation 
that is not now disputed by any scientific man on earth, but is disputed 
by some bigoted mossbacked theologians, because such an admission of 
the wisdom and power of Almighty God to have any limit, would destroy 
the whole fabric of imposture . 

Consequently, the Mosaic account of a beginning when nothing 
existed, and God made the whole visible and the invisible universe out 
of such materials, is beneath even the dignity of a dream, and then the 
time which is given as six literal days, within which this act of creation 
is said to have been performed, is conclusively shown by scientific inves- 
tigations that even this little speck we call earth was not made either in 
six days, or six million years, but was always in existence, and always 
will be, to say nothing of any other worlds, of which astronomy can 
demonstrate is of uncounted millions of worlds, and still space is only 



A Noted Theologian's Admission. 295 

sparsely occupied. And another fiction, a universal deluge, was not 
only impossible, but was a mere assertion born of ignorance of the 
writer of the account, or of his design to impose on the credulity of his 
contemporaries and their successors. 

Another absurdity, to call it by no harsher name, is the still more 
important one, of the Biblical doctrine of the unity of the human race. 
All ethnologists have long since concluded and demonstrated that the 
human race never descended from a single pair, hence the story of 
Adam and Eve, the garden of Eden, the temptation and the fall of man, 
is but a fairy tale, which can only be told for the purpose of amusing 
children, whether partly or fully grown, and these conclusions have 
been arrived at and are upheld by investigators outside of theology, 
because if theologians know these conclusions are the true ones they 
never will admit them to be, for it would destroy both their system and 
occupation. So, if Adam and Eve never existed, they never were 
tempted by the devil, and they never sinned, or fell from grace, and 
what becomes of the foundation doctrine of original sin and the neces- 
sity of the subsequent scheme, involving the atonement and redemp- 
tion. Says the theologian, the possible consequences of such a dis- 
covery as this are too great for contemplation,and it cannot be tolerated, 
and must be resisted. What! No fall for man. No redemption, atone- 
ment or salvation! What becomes of the priesthood after such an 
admission? Let us by all means in our power put down both the dis- 
seminator of such heresy, and the heresy itself. But I say, gentlemen, 
with all due respect, you are too late, and your adversaries are both too 
numerous and too well instructed for you to longer impose upon your 
day is over, and the golden stream of revenue, upon which only you 
can thrive, is fast drying up, so you must find your place among other 
more respectable avocations. 

Much criticism has been indulged in, and many sarcastic sneers have 
been written in the foregoing pages, to try to make all priests and theo- 
logians, of whatever degree, appear ridiculous, but no lengthy, clear 
description of them as a class separate from other men of much definite- 
ness has yet found a place in these pages, therefore I will endeavor to 
supply that deficiency, and give what I consider ought to be applicable 
to them as a class ; but some individuals, a few, may be excepted, with- 
out infringing upon the rule. When the American nation had achieved 
by a long war their freedom and independence from Great Britain, and 
afterwards framed a constitution, they in that instrument neglected to 
acknowledge God as entitled to any share in enabling our armies to be 
victorious, or our statesmen to frame a suitable government for a free 
people, or to ask him to give stability and prosperity to this free govern- 



296 The Skeptic's Defense. 

merit, so that the priest was entirely overlooked and disregarded; so 
what does Satan do but send the priest up the back stairs, and these holy 
men have never ceased to lament this contemptible treatment and 
have never ceased to find or to try to find some plausible reason 
why they were excluded from any share in the construction of this 
political fabric, as well as the religious fabric of which they were the 
architects and builders. Such great men as George Washington, Ben 
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Payne and their associates regarded 
the priests of their day and country not only with indifference, but with 
contempt and abhorrence, and described them somewhat rudely, but 
still truly, as being at the same time, ponderous and lithe, pachyderma- 
tous and feline; no rhinocerous ever had so tough a hide' no cat so 
velvety or adroit a paw; in the hard head of a somewhat superannuated 
lamb of the fold he has the eyes of a| lynx, the fangs of a venomous ser- 
pent, and the forked tongue of the very devil himself; on one side of 
his nature he 1 is as barren as a sandy desert, on the other as fruitful as 
the delta or oasis ; one side as inflexible as granite, on the other as facile 
and yielding as a reed; he is at one and the same time the hardest and 
the most pliable substance in the universe; he slips over you so smoothly 
that you do not feel him, but wherever he touches you the skin peels off 
and the poisoned flesh rots down to the very bone ; a trip hammer would 
not crush him, and a vise could not hold him. Theology indurates him 
and politics grease him ; you could not lay your finger on him without 
touching the point of some petrified theological dogma; his disposition 
is intolerably peevish, irritable and violent, also intensely selfish, yet no 
man's passions are ever so docile or harmless when his interests require 
them to be so, unequaled wariness or cunning marks everything he 
says or does ; even in his violent moods he has reduced dissimulation to 
a fine art; if he chooses to be angry he has reduced it to a fine art, and if 
his anger is a short madness, he has brought its methods to perfection; 
when its exhibition, in his judgment, would tend to injure him, he gulps 
down his rage with a quotation from the gospels, and serenely replies 
to an insult, when he has nothing to fear, but something to gain, and 
then his tongue can slit a heart at every slash ; he is the adroitest strate- 
gist that ever contrived a swindle, or engineered craft never has forged 
a weapon of which he is not the master; the arch fiend himself would 
pick up many useful hints by noticing his maneuvers, especially in con- 
versation, manners and expression of face of this clerical knave, when 
endeavoring to carry some point by artifice, when he lowers his voice 
and fixes his stealthy eyes upon your face, and yet with an air of perfect 
indifference puts the decisive point in some vague, obscure circumlo- 
cution, or in some antithesis but half expressed; if he meets with a rebuff 



A Vivid Picture of the Older Priests. &y? 

from you he instantly withdraws all his forces, and then not a vestige of 
his nefarious purpose remains visible, but presently he comes sneaking 
up some unguarded road, and when he sees that by this process he has 
utterly failed, and any further prosecution of this enterprise would likely 
be entirely futile, he sneaks away directly with remarkable acquiescence 
from that project, raises the seige at once and forever, and then devotes 
himself to new schemes with the same zeal and artifice, without giving 
his late failure a thought. 

He can change front much faster than any politician, and abandon 
a cause with less' remorse, and return to it with less shame, than can 
any other class of men, firmly believing his fictitious Jesus to be divine, 
the Saviour of men, and denouncing with the ulmost devout sacred fury 
the whole race of contemptible infidels as worse than any heathen, and 
at the same time adores the old prophets and apostles. When he is 
about to take a step that he expects will increase his reputation for vul- 
garity, he then always hesitates, coquets, and squirms, after the fashion 
of politicians, and says he is afraid such a course may injure him, in 
fact, ruin him, a common lie of politicians when they guess wrong, as 
they often do; he, like them, keeps a gang of lick spittles constantly in 
his employ, and uses them as long as he thinks he requires them, but 
the instant any one of these begins to work any injury he instantly both 
casts him off and forgets him; he is as relentless as fate in taking 
advantage of the necessities of those he can make serve his purpose,being 
so very oily, so plausible, so disinterested, so kind, so sincere and sinu- 
ous, and when he has thoroughly used his victim, so that he is entirely 
done with him, he spits upon him breaks him in pieces, figuratively, and 
throws him scornfully aside; but he never does this 'till, for some reason 
such as crime or misfortune, producing dark, melancholy fate, which 
puts the wretch so completely in his power that he dare not even attempt 
revenge. 

The Roman Catholic bishops, at the time when that great Italian poet 
Dante, wrote his great poem, the " Inferno," held the horrible dogma 
with the same tenacity as though it was eternal truth, that every soul 
born on earth before the pretended advent of Christ were burning in hell, 
without either any exceptions or prospect of relief, by means of the 
prayers of their believing successors, or merely for the crime of being so 
unfortunate as to be thus born, and this thought brings the writer to dis- 
cuss at some length the subject of the religious creeds, which have 
before been merely mentioned, giving the manner by which they were 
first invented and put in force, and the purpose they have served and 
continue yet to serve. 

It is a remarkable fact that the fictitious one called Christ, or any of 



298 The Skeptic's Defense. 

the fictitious apostles, never gave the slightest hint or intimation that 
any creed, or article of faith, as the word means, was necessary, and they 
never for a moment, any of them expected the system of Christianity 
would ever begin its existence, for it all died when he died, hence this 
whole system was a mere invention or after thought of a set of vile 
impostors. Whether this omission to outline any creed was an oversight 
cr: mistake of the fictitious authors of the new testament, or whether they 
lacked the ability to construct a creed adapted for universal use or 
acceptance, we never shall know T , but we do know that that nest of 
humbugs who constructed the monstrosity which they afterwards 
' named Christianity, soon found out by experience that they could make 
no progress without some creed, or bond of union, and the question of 
how to produce one was by them agitated many years, and all this time 
the converts from Judaism and paganism to Christianity were adrift on 
a tempestuous sea of doctrine, conflicting and contradictory, and with- 
out any compass or rudder they were drifting and tossing on the 
unknown sea of doubt, fearing a disastrous shipwreck, and no land in 
sight, and the Almighty God, when appealed to for assistance or direc- 
tion in this extremity turned a deaf ear to all their supplications. 
Then they said one to another, " Go to ! let us call a general council of 
the ablest men and theologians we have, and let them try and construct 
something for us to examine, and if it secures general approval we will 
adopt it as a standard of union." So in the second century the Council 
of Nice met, and after a fierce debate of more than two years' duration, 
of acrimonious disputes, of metaphysical hair splitting and theological 
jugelery, of political intrigue and ecclesiastical mummery, and display of 
the most vile and bitter passions, often breaking forth into words of 
denunciation, execration and anathemas, instead of charitable benedic- 
tions, a disgraceful squable with clenched fists and drawn swords, when 
soldiers were both required and had, so as to prevent these holy bishops 
from taking each other by the throat, sometimes after these precautions 
resulting in the most bloody massacres and stealthy assassinations. His- 
tory, both church and secular, tells us such was the Council of Nice, and 
it has never been disputed. 

Such, substantially, has been the process by which all creeds have 
been originated and elaborated. The decree or results of such councils 
are plainly not matters of divine inspiration and are not founded on the 
rock of reason, but on the quick sand of credulity, ignorance and super- 
stition, and they required and had at the outset of their career the stern 
command of that religious monster, Constantine, to all the priests to 
receive the decrees or findings of the Council of Nice as the dictates of 
the holy spirit, and from that day to this the Nicene creed stands both 



The Process of Creed Making Unfolded. 299 

unaltered and unrepealed, and is read to every one who aspires to the 
priestly office, and by him assented to before he can be ordained in both 
the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, and all who aspire to 
become members of either of these religious organizations are required 
to at least pretend to believe this absurd, nonsensical creed, and it is 
falsely called, to make it seem more holy or Sacred, the apostle's creed, 
when all the theological rascals who made this creed well knew that no 
apostle ever gave the first hint that any creed was required. Various 
off shoots from the old or parent root of the church have, from time to 
time, as they came into being by internal divisions, made to themselves 
such creeds as the originators of these infant branches seemed to require. 
That of the oldest, or Calvinistic branch, called Presbyterian, was made 
at Westminster Abbey or church in London, England, and the council 
or convention were in constant session, with slight interruptions, more 
than seven years, spent in continuous debate and effort to invent a com- 
prehensive creed, which has made its way so as to securely hold that 
conservative body in a sort of hateful disunion for about two hundred 
and fifty years, but there is now abundant indication that this creed is 
about to be abolished, or so modified as to destroy its original force. 
For a great many years the catechism, or concentrated essence of the 
Presbyterian's creed, has been used as a club or bludgeon, to convince 
would be heretics or doubters of their error, by stunning their sensibil- 
ities intellectually, for when it declares that God is the maker of heaven 
and earth, it philosophises, and the. inference is that this God must be a 
celestial mechanic or artisan, for every intelligent person nowadays 
knows that creation is not a manufactured thing", but a growth; and like- 
wise, when Christ is said to be seated on God's throne, at his right hand, 
we all know God has no throne or hands, so this is not a fact, but only fic- 
tion, or poetic, or extravagant language; but patience is sure to become 
both bewildered and exhausted, when the various nonsensical creeds of 
Christendom alone, to say nothing of other spurious religious systems, 
are attempted to be investigated or explained, and the best treatment 
they are entitled to is to class them, one and all, as so much useless, 
nonsensical rubbish, and this view shows us what a wonderful and inex- 
cusable outrage it is, and always has been, for one people or even one 
man to try to force any particular religious belief on another people or 
man, Jor they all are no more or better than an imexplainable, unmean- 
ing jargon of words, destitute of ideas, impossible of transmission from 
one person to another, or from one people or nation to another, having 
different language, climate and intellectual capacities and environments, 
and at its best design or intention it is nothing but a shrewd contrivance 
of the priesthood to produce a fountain from which may be made to 



300 The Skeptic's Defense. 

flow a large golden stream of revenue, to find its inevitable way into 
their greedy pockets at last 

What a strange, incomprehensible mystery the Christian's Bible is, 
and a still greater mystery is the fact that the people, many of whom 
are highly educated and intelligent, shrewd business managers, have 
allowed the priest to secure and retain such an unbounded influence over 
them as to prevent their getting so much as a desire to investigate or 
even to reach a doubt, of the infallibility of every statement they read or 
hear the priest read in that holy book. That portion of the Bible 
we call the new testament announces resurrection from the dead, and 
even goes so far as to give several instances in which that impossible 
feat has been realized. The priest says the Bible, both the old and new- 
testament, is the word of God, but yet in the same book is also written 
'' As a cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goeth down to 
grave shall come up no more." That must also be true, for it stands in 
the same true Bible, and therefore I must just as much believe one as 
the other. So I believe there is no immortality, for the most perfect 
creation it must crumble to dust the same as does any and every work 
of human hands, and everything in nature must sooner cease to exist 
tnan can nature itself, which has formed dust. The orthodox Christian 
asserts (and the word orthodox includes all Christians but Catholics) 
that all created beings, all worlds, will finally perish. If that proves 
true, Jehovah will then (float in solitude, amid the ruin of his works, 
which were pronounced very good and permanent amid chaos, as at and 
before the " Beginning." Again I repeat, from holy, inspired writing, 
" As the cloud consumes and vanishes away, so also shall none return 
from the grave." Those great foundation doctrines, on which the 
orthodox Christian system is built, and named by theologians justifica- 
tion, adoption, sanctification, atonement, or redemption, all depend for 
their force or their vitality or truth on the various epistles of St. Paul, so 
called, and the reason why he wa^ called saint was because his writings 
were received by the council, a majority of which decided what were 
divinely inspired and what were not. These letters or epistles were pre- 
tended to have been actually written by a man who once was (named 
Saul of Tarsus. Who and what was he, and how much is he entitled to 
be regarded as fit authority on which to found any permanent structure 
or system? He was a young apostate Jew, and, if contemporary his- 
torians can be relied on, he apostatized from the Jewish faith from a 
spirit of revenge or retaliation on his tutor Gamaliel, because he refused 
him his daughter in marriage ; but he, in his harangue of defense on a trial 
for sedition before a Roman magistrate, gives another and very different 
reason for his apostacy, and is found in the 26th chapter of Acts of the 



The Small Importance of Paul's Teaching. 301 

Apostles, in which speech he is trying to justify or explain his conduct in 
stirring up strife and sedition among different pagan or Gentile peoples, 
the inevitable result of both his precepts and practices, in consequence 
of which more or less who came under his influence were inclined, and 
in some few cases did, apostatize from their former religions, and in con- 
sequence become unruly and disobedient subjects of their Roman 
rulers. This speech, which out of mere courtesy he was permitted to 
make in that public place, plainly sets forth what was plainly a notorious 
fact, that he had been both an intense hater and a fierce persecuter of 
the new sect, he then being a member of the strictest sect among the 
Tews, a Pharisee, which then was, and now is, a bigoted, fanatical hater 
of everybody not also a Pharisee. That idle, foolish, untruthful reason 
which he in this speech gives, how he came to change from a hater and 
persecuter into a lover and apologist of Christ's religion, is far too silly 
to merit any notice, much less to furnish any reason why he should 
have any divine assistance to enable him to be the inventor of any sys- 
tem more beneficial or true than the one from which he had apostatized, 
and it received none at that time, either from the magistrate, the audi- 
ence, or the genuine apostles, such as Peter and his associates, who, on 
account of their experience as associates and lovers of the person and 
teachings of Christ in his lifetime, and his sending to them the comforter 
on the day of pentecost, to fill them with the Holy Ghost, and instruct 
them, so they could instruct all people on earth in their own tongue, 
without either study, teacher ,or even books of instruction; these original 
apostles always regarded the former Saul, but the now Paul, with sus- 
picion, and his teachings with abhorrence, and refused to associate with 
him, keeping him at such an isolation and neglect that he finally took 
the hint, without waiting for a kick, and wandered away by himself 
among pagan barbarians, and he, in consequence of a want of co-opera- 
tion or recognition, was obliged to swim or sink, as he might, unassisted 
by any of them, be able ; and it was he alone that invented the most, if 
not all the foundation doctrines and rites on which Christianity was con- 
structed, and is now trying to spread and make permanent and univer- 
sal, with but poor success, for if you eliminate the Catholics in the cen- 
sus of Christians, which orthodoxy always does, Christianity, is con- 
stantly diminishing in its ratio of the population of the world at large ; 
for it is no longer any secret, but is publicly known, that millions of 
people in all civilized and Christian countries have given up Christian- 
ity, and with it religion itself, of every name and variety. Millions of 
others cling to the old beliefs, as a sort of anchor, because nothing any 
better is in sight, but fear to let go the anchor and drift away; and those 
who still believe in Christianity among the masses do so honestly, 



302 The Skeptic's Defense. 

because they have been instructed to do so by the priest and by others 
who have had their care, since their very birth, and when maturity is 
reached, they as a rule neither know or care whether their teaching has 
been true or false, realizing not or even suspecting that the time has 
come for a change into a new form, perhaps not strictly a religion, but 
more in the nature of an inquiry, or individual search after truth, and a 
discovery and separation from error. 

Perhaps the word idealism comes as near as any other to what mod- 
ern civilization means by the position it intends to occupy in future, the 
striving for an ideal or the perfection in every thing, when the old sys- 
tems of discord between religion and humanity at large disappears, and 
in its place comes the ideal, for mankind as a whole and for each indi- 
vidual, for the ideal of science and art, for the ideal or perfection of civ- 
ilization, for the ideal of all virtues, for the ideal of family, community, 
society, and humanity in all its forms. This reformation is not merely 
aggressive, but also creative and reforming, and works not by actual 
force, but by organization, example and instruction. As long as science 
fails to decide against stimulants, we are not required to wholly discard 
or refrain from using them in moderation, and therefore temperance 
societies may be considered on the whole imperceptibly beneficial. This 
idealism has no knowledge of any future life, and hopes for nothing at 
all beyond this life, but is willing to concede there is in nature, or some- 
where outside of humanity, an absolute power, over which mankind has 
no influence or control, and to which any appeal is useless, but the true 
essence of this power we can never hope to know, and ought not there- 
fore to inquire, but with a suitable reserve the words creator, providence, 
almighty, may be used, but as to believing an actual personal being to 
exist, as a kind of individual, nothing is further removed than such an 
absurd view of this unknown power or force, and we do not therefore 
believe any man or woman ought to be so elevated as to be esteemed an 
object of worship or reverence, or that any God ever did or ever will 
become man, but we are still willing to admit, because we can prove it, 
that there are great differences in men, and that some do more for the 
benefit of mankind and true civilization than others, but such superior- 
ity is not to be ascribed to any special merit of such a person, but rather 
to superior environments, both in his birth, as to place and time, creat- 
ing more favorable opportunities for development, so that if some are 
born a genius, and afterwards finds favorable conditions of development, 
it is not wholly his merit, but much benefit results in following good 
examples; but as to worshiping any object of the imagination, and 
call that object God, and expect to receive any favor or even recognition 
from such an imaginary source, in answer to any prayer, is too mon- 



The Emblem of a Cross a Mere Humbug. 303 

strous an absurdity to be worth any effort to refute; and we have no 
right to even inquire how or when matter came to be, for it is only idle 
curiosity that prompts any one to wish to be informed, and it always 
will be beyond the grasp of mind to do more than speculate or theorize, 
nor can we ever reach a point of development to do more than guess 
what will be the last end and endless destiny of any being or form of 
matter, for these and all like these are open questions, and science is per- 
mitted to freely discuss them. 

Whoever wrote the gospel of John, and the three epistles of John, 
wrote a mess of trash respecting some beings, which he for want of a 
better name, or else by reason of false instruction, called the Love of 
God to his children. What a false conception that is, and not only false 
but ridiculous as well. What is love? It is nothing but a graceful or 
polite unmeaning word, without any corresponding sentiment with 
which it can be compared to express an idea, which idea is a low but 
still a natural and general sentiment, or feeling, that is common to all 
grades of animals, and the highest epithet adapted to express the emo- 
tion falsely called love is animal attraction or sexual desire, for it never 
can exist where but one sex is found; so we regard such stuff as a God 
of love as only a theological trick, more impossible and absurd than any 
that has been before noticed in this memorandum. 

Another monstrous and untruthful theological dogma is the great 
reverence had and great reliance placed on the foolish, unmeaning 
emblem of a cross. Let not any Christian glory in that emblem, for it 
has always since, and very likely before, human history began, been 
held in a singular veneration, and adopted as one mode of executing 
criminals, and was actually, set up as an object of worship by many 
tribes of the East, before it was afterwards set up in the temple of 
Serapis, in Egypt; and that was done many ages before the pretended 
advent of Christ, so that this emblem is only another rascally fraud, 
intended to deceive the ignorant rabble, and form an excuse to get up 
a mock sentimental enthusiasm of sympathy, to operate on the emo- 
tional nature of the ignorant masses, for the priests have always known 
it to be only a fraud or imposition. Another monstrous humbug of the 
priest, which he always chatters, whether the occasion calls for it or not, 
such as at the burial of the remains of some loved or highly esteemed 
friend. These sentimental, priestly numbskulls tell their dupes who are 
present on such occasions to hope in a sentimental way to take their 
last earthly rest in such goodly company as they can always find in any 
first-class cemetery, and then have their graves covered with roses that 
grew in a greenhouse, and were cut with silver shears. Those great, 
renowned, ancient philosophers, such as Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle 



304 The Skeptic's Defense. 

and others believed and taught that God had actual, real children, and 
these children were all eternal and unbegotten, and this belief came to 
them from tradition, and this tradition sprung from mythology, like all 
other such foolish notions, but, foolish and untenable as it is, the 
foundation of Christianity comes from just such a myth, and discloses 
an irksome, agonizing care, a superstitious industry, an aching humor 
to see and understand what is not to be seen or understood, and to be 
doing what signifies nothing when it is done,and if they can possibly lug 
in a passage of scripture, no matter whether applicable or not, or a 
supposed prophecy, from even the fourth book of Esdras, or any other 
non-existent book, these sagacious writers and reasoners will insert this 
into the mighty hypothesis, like the keystone in the arch, to give it 
strength and stability, if. not perpetual durability; scarcely, however, 
have they completed this goodly superstructure of fraud and deception, 
when in comes some agnostic or atheist, such as Ingersoll, and at one 
blow he tumbles the whole fabric about their ears. This straight and 
narrow way, that is said to lead to eternal bliss for instance, is a shrewd 
invention of the Christian theologian or priest of the former times, and 
may be compared appropriately to a public walk of faith, a sort of relig- 
ious turnpike, in which the few privileged who stray into it, or are 
enticed into it by the priest, to avoid or escape from the throng which 
patronize the broad road that leads to perdition, and which may be trav- 
ersed free, are in return for such escape and fear of contamination 
required to pay enough toll to build the turnpike, and to keep it in good 
repair, and enrich the stockholders besides, and this toll is gathered by 
the priest in the form of his salary, and the various schemes or contriv- 
ances to enable you to travel this straight and narrow way, and this is 
kept up to the end of life, and you are led to expect that you will find a 
deposit in heaven as a reward for all this fidelity and generosity. Is not 
the assurance of the Mahometan priest the most attractive and reason- 
able instruction how to navigate his road to the realms of eternal bliss, 
for he instructs his dupes that in his heaven or at the terminus of the 
road, at death, you will have a seat on a cushion of clouds, and are there 
provided with a chibouk to smoke, and while beautiful maidens are 
tickling the soles of your feet with rosy fingers, and you can forever 
enjoy the pleasant sensation, and at the same time feast your eyes and 
imagination in anticipation of completing your felicity by a more close 
and intimate association, while the Christian priest can do no more to 
make his heaven, at the end of his turnpike, attracting, than that you 
are to stand or sit in eternal idleness before the throne of God, and in 
singing hymns and praising his greatness and goodness eternally. Both 
of these idle fancies are nothing but a kind of wild fanaticism, which is 



The Impossibility of Verifying the Gospels 305 

peculiar to all religions, in all countries, and in every age of human 
existence, and this one specimen of folly is given as only a sample of 
many thousand such fanatical forms that constantly endeavor to force its 
worthless convictions upon unwilling peoples, and this is urged by theo- 
logians and priests of these various forms to be both good and evil at 
one and the same time. Such is the absurdity of theology, only a vile 
sham and a cunning snare. 

A conspicuous instance of this is divulged in the manner the gos- 
pels were written, as well as the matter they contain, for no one of the 
multitude of commentaries that have been written have ever pretended 
or tried to prove any nearer than a probable time before which they were 
not written, and they all agree that they were not written till near the 
close of the century that began when they pretend Christ was born, and 
then they were derived wholly from tradition, which is only fallible 
human memory, handed verbally along from one generation to another, 
in detached descriptions of many impossible miraculous events, and 
many parables, and miscellaneous instructions, healings, conversations 
and predictions, and the utter want of agreement wdien anv details are 
set forth, and the addition from time to time of much absurdity, if not 
actual fiction; such, for instance, the manner never before or since 
heard of, a human birth after an impossible impregnation of a virgin, 
who, after such birth, and after having several other children, still 
remained a virgin ; and then the hiding of this child in an impenetrable 
obscurity for thirty years, and then bringing him forward in such a 
way, a mere idle tramp, with a band of ignorant boobies as associates, 
and ending his career so swiftly and in such a disgraceful manner. 
This whole scheme is only a theological trick or invention. 

The great end and aim of all those who indulge in religious specula- 
tion, which is falsely called knowledge, is only this: all differ essentially 
from each other, and all have or say they have the same title to belief, 
for it has always been and is the self imposed task of theologians of one 
species to demolish the speculations of their predecessors, and at the same 
time elevate their own more improbable theories in their stead, which 
are destined in turn to be uprooted and replaced by the air castles of a 
succeeding generation. Thus it would seem that pretended knowledge 
and genius, of which these learned men make such great parade, consists 
in endeavoring to detect the errors and absurdities of those of their own 
kind who have gone before, and in inventing new errors and absurdities 
greater than those they seek to demolish, to be in turn detected and 
exposed by those of their own set who come later on the stage. The 
most plausible theories, that seem so mighty and wonderful to their 
originators, are nothing better or more important than so many soap 



306 The Skeptic's Defense. 

bubbles, with which the priests and theologians hope to amaze the 
people, and which they would dignify with the name of wisdom and 
eternal truth. They in such a way merely amuse and deceive them- 
selves, because the more honest but vulgar crowd stand gazing at them 
in the most stupid wonder and admiration, and dignify these learned 
boobies as wise and worthy men, when, after all, theologians of all grades 
are only deceiving or amusing themselves, while they are imposing on 
their dupes, with things and subjects so totally incomprehensible as to be 
beyond any finite mind to reach,and also totally worthless if they could be 
comprehended. These insignificant, miserable, fanatical, theological big- 
ots,including all priests, continually ask us, who they designate as destroy- 
ers of all human hopes and aspirations, when we attack and endeavor to 
destroy their false systems and beliefs, what we propose to give them in 
exchange, as though the destroyer of weeds and thistles was by reason 
of such destruction obliged to replace them with useful productions, or 
at least to sow good seed. I reply that we recognize no such obliga- 
tion, for we are public benefactors by so doing, but we are ready to go 
so far as to admit that morality, having always been the chief merit of 
both the pagan and Jewish systems, was degraded and driven from the 
new testament scriptures, because it neither gives any promise of future 
reward, or terrifies its possessor with the fear of future punishment, 
therefore the priest sets it aside as of no value in and of itself. The 
disciples of this independent doctrine are able to show numerous con- 
spicuous instances of the perfectability of human actions, produced by 
the unassisted decisions of the human intellect, on the limits of abstract 
right and wrong. The moral man admires virtue because it is very 
beautiful, and puts it in practice because he considers it to be beneficial, 
while they do not abstain from a vicious act for the reason that it is sin- 
ful, but simply in obedience to their reason, because it is both uncomely 
and degrading; therefore they judge of the quality of an act by its con- 
sequences. 

It has been asserted and constantly maintained, in what has hitherto 
been written in this book, that the priest has always been and still is in 
nearly all forms of religion the head or leader and guide of human 
affairs, as well secular as religious. In periods so remote in the past that 
history fails to reach, so as to describe how this ascendancy was 
acquired, this fact is clearly manifest, for as soon as history, for many 
centuries before Jewish or Bible history, as we have it, was written, 
began to record the history of the Aryan races, who first invaded and 
then overran the country now called India, we find the priests, which 
were then, as now, called " Brahmins," struggling with the military caste 
called Kshattriyas for ascendancy and in the end they were victorious, 



A Parallel of Buddhist and Christian. 307 

and from that time forth in them was concentrated all the sources of 
knowledge, both secular and religious. They became the depositaries 
of all the sacred books, all the books of philosophy and science, and 
also the laws of the then ancient Hindoo commonwealth, hence they 
became the custodians and the creators of all secular literature, and in 
such a way they then had and they still have a monopoly of vedic learn- 
ing, and their practice or policy has always been to trace back every 
branch of knowledge and all intellectual effort to the " Veda." This 
priestly ascendancy has been many times assailed, and for a short time 
rendered dormant or weak, but it has always renewed its struggles for 
supremacy, and in the end has prevailed, so that for more than twenty- 
two centuries the priests have been the counsellors and guide of the 
Hindoo princes, and also the teachers of the Hindoo people. The 
priesthood of Buddhism has always been hereditary, and having in 
their sole control and possession, not only the vedas,or what is the Budd- 
hist Bible, and vedic hymns, so that they have at their pleasure and for 
their own advantage effaced and altered as far as to them seemed expe- 
dient, all traces of such struggles as they have had to reach their pres- 
ent position, as to make it appear to the present priesthood that their 
11 caste," or separate community, had originated or come forth from the 
mouth of God, and that they were divinely appointed from the very 
beginning for the very highest rank among men ; and this identical prac- 
tice has been followed, as far as circumstances have permitted, by all 
priests of all religions, in all time and in all lands', and always will con- 
tinue to be till intelligence so overcomes ignorance, and reason so over- 
comes superstition, as to leave the cultivated human mind free to pursue 
the investigations of science and art, as to realize that any religion is 
not only useless, but alsd pernicious. 

It has also been the intention of the writer in what has preceded, in 
reference to the origin of the Christian form of religion, to make it evi- 
dent to the reader that it, like all the other systems, was a mere inven- 
tion or fraud, for it has always been impossible for any person to bring 
forward any historical proof, outside of their own invented' gospels; for 
in fact, and it is a well-known fact to all theologians, who instruct all 
priests to prepare them for their calling, to humbug the people, that all 
history is entirely silent about every event relating to the origin of 
Christianity, or even the cause why what is called the Christian era ever 
had a beginning, or even the precise time when it began; and when 
some doubter, or as they are usually designated, skeptics, drive the theo- 
logians into a corner so close that they cannot otherwise escape, the 
best they are able to do, when they are required to prove by history that 
anv such being as the gospels describe has ever lived, is to refer to, in the 



308 The Skeptic's Defense. 

first place, "Josephus." Who. and what was Josephus? He was a 
Galilean half-breed Jew, who was taken prisoner by the Romans and 
carried to Rome along with other prisoners, when Titus, a Roman 
general, made an end of the Jews as a nation. He craved the privilege, 
when in prison to have access to the captured historical records of the 
Jews, which were written in the Hebrew language, arid rewrite them in 
Greek language ; this privilege was granted, and his " Antiquities " is the 
result. Every scholar who has ever seen a genuine copy of Josephus in 
Greek will certify that not one word is found there about any Jesus 
Christ ever living in his country, Galilee, much less any person of his 
description ever being crucified by the Romans under Pontius Pilate, 
but the rascally Christian who translated the " Antiquities " into English, 
in order to promote its sale in Christian lands, forged a short paragraph 
about a mysterious man, if it be lawful to call him a man, and from him 
originated the Christians. This forgery is absolutely all the proof any 
person, whether theologian or not, can find in history, but to wriggle 
out of the corner another shallow device is resorted to like this : Some 
pagan writers, such as Tacitus, Seutonius, Pliny, and perhaps some 
others, speak of there being Christians in various parts of the Roman 
empire in their day, therefore there must have been a genuine Christ 
for them to spring from, when these theologian rascals well know that 
these writers made no distinction between all not pagans, but classed 
diem all alike, whether Jew or what not, Christians, when referring to 
them at all. Such is the specimen of the candor of Christian theolo- 
gians, who instruct the priests to continue this deception, for fear the 
golden stream of revenue will dry up if the fraud is discovered. The 
writer of the article in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, entitled " Israel," 
lias sketched the Jewish history from Abraham, through all their vicissi- 
tudes till their destruction and dispersion^ which ended when the era 
which is called the Christian era, began. When the period 
in such history that names such Roman magistrates as Herod, 
Pilate, and others mentioned in the gospels, had authority in 
Palestine and Galilee, then, if ever, is the proper time to 
speak of such an individual, if such then lived, as Jesus Christ, who, if 
he ever lived at all, was infinitely superior to any one, or to even all his 
contemporaries put together; but not the slightest hint can be extracted 
from the history of that period that any such events or any such person 
as these gospels refer to either ever lived or ever was expected to appear 
by these Jews, or even desired, so therefore it is both fair and irresistable 
to conclude that the inventors of this imposition also invented its hero 
and his associates, and wrote a sort of fiction or novel, which after much 
struggle and controversy developed the humbug afterwards in the year 



The Amalgamation of Judaism with Paganism. 309 

one hundred and forty-six was named Christianity, and its disciples 
Christians, and by adroitly placing- it far enough back to reach a time 
when such transactions as these gospels or novel delineate could have 
occurred in Jerusalem and vicinity, for at that time the Jews had a .semi- 
national existence, and that was the very last moment when such events 
were possible, for the Jews were immediately afterwards dispersed, and 
afterwards incapable of acting in concert in doing or wishing to do such 
a monstrous crime as this one laid to their charge, and which they all 
do yet and have ever since denied ever even having any motive or wish 
to do, and another reason why these impostors placed these transac- 
tions back in the past, was to prevent any investigation from reaching 
back to the source, to disprove these enormous lies, for such they were 
and still are, for fiction is too weak a word to characterize such infamy 
as the birth, life and death, to say nothing about any resurrection, which 
is the most abominable lie of the whole. The first effort these first 
impostors made was attempting so to reorganize the former humbug, 
Judaism, which had come to an 'ignominious end as a cohesive system, 
so as not to deprive it of its chief distinctive character, such as its fes- 
tivals, its rites, its laws, and observances, for these externals were all 
lost, and these rabbis could no longer teach or apply either the moral or 
ceremonial laws, or have their usual synagogue worship, and conse- 
quently the attempt to entirely separate from everything heathenish had 
to be abandoned in time, and a compromise agreed to by the ecclesiasti- 
cal managers on both sides, but the complete union between Judaism 
and heathenism, which finally made the new organization later name 
Christianity, when the head, or Christ, was invented, and when the 
church was substituted for the synagogue, because the pagans among 
whom the Jews were dispersed were both more numerous and more 
intellectual than the Jews were, and the Greeks had translated the Jew- 
ish scriptures into a form called the Septuagint, in the year 146, but the 
struggle to in a measure maintain Judaism was long and fierce, for fully 
five centuries, before Christianity fully triumphed. 

When the secular arm, or the civil power, reinforced the ecclesiasti- 
cal arm, or the religious power, in conseqeunce of the pretended conver- 
sion of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, who was both before and 
after his conversion the most abominable wretch of which history has 
left any record, in the year 325 A. D., a political bias was united with 
the religious, and the ambition to spread and absorb by persuasion the 
pagans, this persecution by the Christians by retaliation for former per- 
secutions of themselves by the pagans, was both fierce and univer- 
sal, so that whole nations were made Christians by force, or by simply 



310 The Skeptic's Defense. 

converting the king, who used his position and power to compel his 
subjects to adopt his religion, and there has never been a period since 
that time that Christianity has not secured nearly the whole of their 
numerical strength by political management of the rulers of the various 
peoples, who afterwards were included and called henceforth Christian 
nations, so that all the ecclesiastics, from the various popes down, have 
had the assistance and support of the strong arm of man, and not the 
almighty arm of God, to prevent their entire extinction, and this secu- 
lar encouragement and support has been given because it was consid- 
ered by the powers that be that the cultivation of superstition among the 
masses of mankind was the easiest and most thorough way to restrain 
their natural passions, and govern them, and not because any intelligent 
rulers or even priests ever had the least confidence in the truth or reality 
of any of these monstrous humbugs that they propagated ; consequently, 
the most sanguinary and bloody wars without number have been waged 
in the name and for the defence of Christianity, in some of its forms, 
and legislation has been so shaped and contrived as to relieve religious 
bodies of a large portion of taxation, and protect them from interfer- 
ence, and reserve for their use the invented Sabbath day, so that they 
may call the people into their sacred presence to unmolested and undis- 
turbed instruct them in such manner as they consider the best to keep 
them in subjection, and influence them to generous contributions, to 
keep up these impositions; and all this is not done for the reason that 
these individuals are made better by this process, but because they are 
easier managed and made dupes of, and to gradually and imperceptibly 
strengthen their party, for it is only for want of the required power, and 
not the disposition, to do such an unparalleled act as to abolish all secu- 
lar institutions, and rule the world wholly by religious bigotry, ignor- 
ance and superstition, and nothing but willful ignorance, and 
stolid bigotry or what is worse indifference, prevents scrutiny and 
examination of what simply one phase of fanaticism is capable of 
doing, and has already done, and yet purposes to do, to blight and curse 
the human race. The cursed institution of Romanism called " Jesuitism," 
for it alone and by itself, without the assistance of the numerous other 
Roman Catholic organizations, which are equally pernicious and vile, 
has done in the past, is now doing, and is intending to do, as soon as it 
is strong enough, which is no less than to trample upon and destroy 
every free government, and every aspiration of any and every human 
being, outside of themselves, to be other than the religious slaves and 
dupes of their system, which, without exaggeration, is the worst sys- 
tem that has ever cursed the human race. If any one doubts this asser- 
tion, let such person read in the revised Encyclopedia Brittanica the 



Some Fearful Disclosures Withheld. 311 

definition of " Jesuitism," and you will see described with candor and 
fairness a history or description of the most diabolically monstrous 
infamy the world has ever seen, and then to try to realize what an awful, 
abominable discrepancy is there disclosed between possession and prac- 
tice, for if there is one thing more than another that Christianity is cele- 
brated for in its pretension, it is its power to elevate and refine its adher- 
ents, and to restrain and modify human passions, and keep the posses- 
sion of the race ; and, bad as it is, Jesuitism embodies more that is salu- 
tary in its aims and objects than is to be found in any other of the mul- 
titude of secret societies, the aggregate of which go to make up the 
Roman and Greek Catholic Christian church, after more than three hun- 
dred years in organization and fifteen hundred years since they have had 
undisputed possession of the religious field in Europe, and to a large 
extent in America. 

We are to remember these all claim to, 'be the direct successors of 
Christ, through Peter and the other apostles, who were miraculously 
endowed with the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. Nothing is disclosed in 
any history of the enormities that are continually contrived and put into 
practice, in all the nunneries and monasteries which are so numerous in 
every Catholic country, as that they keep in idleness and crime vast 
numbers of both sexes, and such revelations as might be had if the vows 
of secrecy were removed from the inmates, is only to be surmised, when 
we see and hear of here and there one who has had enough courage to 
desert from the hell into which they were enticed by the lying flattery of 
the priest. These revelations are not from pagan or Mahometan, or 
even Mormon sources, but from the genuine simon pure Christian 
church, who are ambitious to make these enormities universal, and I 
ask, in all candor and seriousness, what have they ever clone beneficial 
to the race to furnish an offset to all this enormity? Assassination on a 
large scale is a favorite practice of Jesuit mercenaries. They have assas- 
sinated more Popes, whom they could not rule, than have died a natural 
death. Since Ignatius Loyola invented this infernal abomination, in 
about A. D. fifteen hundred and forty, and are at this very moment 
watching all the movements of the head ecclesiastics of their own 
kind, and all others, and all secular movements in Christian lands, with 
the most intense interest and anxiety, with the most hellish design and 
intention, to defeat in some way, fair or foul, every encroachment on 
their purposes and plans, and the chief reason why they are not more 
numerous or prosperous is because the process by which Jesuit priests 
are made is so intricate and long continued, requiring constant training 
in theology for thirty years on one theme, and such intense application 
of mental energy destroys their intellectual faculties for business man- 



312 The Skeptic's Defense. 

agement, that by the time they arrive at initiation they are incapable of 
much ability to cope with inferior minds, who have not confined their 
faculties to the constant pursuit and preparation for one idea, and hence 
the Tesuits have never had but two really able men in their order. These 
are its founder, Loyola, and Francis Xavier, who, with Loyola, was 
canonized in sixteen hundred and twenty-three, which process gave 
them the title of saint for a prefix, and also an annual feast or festival 
day through all subsequent time, and there is some reason to hope and 
expect that Jesuitism for this cause, the want of able managers, will 
finally perish. 

About six hundred and fifty years " B. C." there was founded or 
invented the first system of religion in the Chinese Empire of which his- 
tory has preserved any record, and it is still in existence there to some 
extent under the name of " Taoism," and was revived and more firmly 
established a hundred years later by Confucius, which has received, since 
his time, his name, and it is plain to see, from a treatise or book now 
accessible to scholars, that the moral precepts of both Judaism and 
Christianity are found in Chinese characters in which this book is writ- 
ten ; that the Jewish idea of one God and the Christian idea of the trinity 
have been derived from this ancient source, but God as a creator is not 
found, because the system is like this: All things have always sprung 
up in nature without any word spoken, and they come to maturity and 
perish without any effort for their production or continuation, going 
through their processes without any display of ambition or pride, and 
the results are realized without any assumption of control or ownership, 
and it is owing to the absence of such assumption that the results and 
their processes do not diminish, and can never disappear or cease to act, 
and it only needs the same quality in the arrangement of human affairs 
to make society both beautiful and happy. Therefore a government 
conducted by sages or extra wise men would not only free the people 
from inordinate desires, fill their bellies, keep their aspirations feeble, 
and strengthen their bones, and if you can only keep the people without 
the desire to get knowledge they will surely be contented, and if by 
chance there be some who have tasted a little of knowledge, so terrorize 
them that they would not dare to put it in practice, and that would 
result in keeping all men outside of the priesthood as simple as little 
children. 

Such is a brief outline of " Taoism," and much similarity can be per- 
ceived with both the teaching and practice of both Judaism and Christ- 
ianity, for they both aim to keep people so simple in every country 
except America, that it will be easy to both dupe and govern them, for 
the priest has always said that the difficulty of governing any people is 



Why Priests Sometimes Encourage Learning. ' 313 

that they both desire and have too much knowledge, and that any ruler 
who tries to govern a nation by wisdom is a scourge and tyrant, and that 
he who does not try to so govern them is a great blessing. Such teach- 
ing, put in force more than twenty-five hundred years ago, has been 
copied by all the subsequent inventors of systems of religion, as far 
and as near as circumstances will permit, and, is now the chief corner 
stone of Romanism in every land where they have sufficient authority, 
such as in Spain, France, Italy, South America, Central America and 
Mexico; and even in free United States of America the main aim and 
strife of the Catholic hierarchy is that they may become strong enough 
by votes to abolish all free schools, and confine and monopolize all 
learning to the priestly office in its various forms. While it may be con- 
ceded that Protestantism is obliged to co-operate and incidentally sup- 
port the system of free secular schools, it is at the same time charged 
that they only do so for the reason that the protection of the civil laws 
are required, and they could not exist without the organization of society 
on a basis of universal co-operation and amalgamation with irreligious 
rulers and civil magistrates of various grades, who are in 1 all cases irre- 
ligious or else indifferent, and also that toleration and separation is 
decreed in the fundamental structure of any free government, hence 
priestly influence is in a great degree restrained and modified, not 
because of a free choice on their part, but for want of the necessary 
power to act independently; and it can be shown that the priests, in the 
early ages of Christianity, absorbed and got into their possession all the 
public libraries, containing the chief sources of information, and then 
monopolized and dispensed or withheld learning in the way and to the 
extent which they considered expedient, useful and necessary to per- 
petuate superstition and reverence for their dignity, and to continue their 
ability to extract revenue from them, and this practice of priestly mon- 
opoly of learning, and of then withholding it from those who pay them 
generously for instruction, has always prevailed in all forms of religion, 
in every country, and throughout all past time, and will continue as long 
as they can perpetuate their pernicious instruction by seizing the infant 
as soon as its intellect is enough developed to receive an impression, 
and causing its mother to start superstition in a feeble way,and as the fac- 
ulty called mind increases in ability to comprehend stronger superstitious 
impression, send them to the priest, or what is equivalent, to the Sunday- 
school, and from there into some church organization, where the two 
humbugs called baptism and the Lord's supper are conferred upon 
them, in such a way and accompanied by such surroundings as are cal- 
culated to, and actually do, so deepen former impressions, that apostacy 
is rarely seen or even wished for by this dupe, who in nearly every case 



314 The Skeptic's Defense. 

are so permeated by superstitious reverence for a mere myth, that any 
imposition the priest wishes to teach them they are not only ready but 
eager to receive. 

Those who attended the sessions of the parliament of religion, held 
in Chicago on the grounds of the World's Fair, do not need to be told 
that the advocates and defenders of the Christian form of religion came 
off second or third best in their arguments. Much information was 
there disclosed about the missionary enterprise among the orientals, 
such as Ceylon, India, Burmah, China, etc., in fact it is the " other side " 
of this question which the missionary reports studiously conceal and 
ignore, so that they may continue to extract the last morsel of revenue 
from their poor dupes, and which could not be done if they knew the 
real truth, for such knowledge would arouse not only indifference but 
indignation, so that all contributions would cease. While this informa- 
tion from the other side is very discreditable, and ought to be discourag- 
ing to the Christians who are conducting this Missionary enterprise, it 
is proportionately cheering and edifying to all classes of skeptics, who 
have always looked upon these efforts as not only outrageous, but use- 
less and pernicious, and wholly unauthorized. Such able men were 
delegated to this convention, or parliament, as were able to not only 
meet Christians in their own land, but also to vanquish them by boldly 
and plainly warning them that no permanent success had yet been real- 
ized or was likely to be. Mr. Pung, a Chinese delegate, complains that 
such meagre translations of the Christian scriptures as have been 
attempted are so execrably done that no use can be made of them, and 
that nobody but silly women and still more silly girls ever frequent their 
places of worship, and he earnestly insists that these missionaries inquire 
into the moral character of their weak, silly converts, for none but the 
outcast class go near the missionaries, and the missionaries are, as a 
rule, intolerant and selfish, and inculcate no moral precepts beyond those 
which the people all have from their own priests in great abundance. 
Another instance is given by Mr. Dharampala, the Buddhist, from 
Ceylon : " What the people want, if they really want anything from 
these Christian missionaries, is the lowly, gentle, meek teachings of their 
pretended Christ, who we all regard as a mere myth, but not because we 
do not have them now, but because we want more of them than we have, 
instead of the gross vices which these missionaries both encourage and 
continually practice among us." Says Mr. Charya, a Brahmin, from 
India: " Christian missionaries have entirely failed in his country, for 
the reason, the religion which has such an unfounded claim, of superior- 
ity to every other must ever be disgusting to those to whom it is offered, 
however good it otherwise may be, because the missionaries endeavor 



Who and What Robert G. Ingersot.l Ts. 315 

to make their converts believe that the eating the flesh of animals is a 
necessary preparation to baptism, and that baptism is a saving ordi- 
nance; and in a general way the Asiatics seem to have made their hosts 
aware that Western religionists, as they call all missionaries, impress 
them as destitute of gentleness and devontness, for the Western tempera- 
ment is to their mild and meditative Eastern natures something rough 
and almost brutal. The above is only the merest outline of 1 these ori- 
ental revelations, but, meagre as it is, it fully sustains and confirms all 
the unfavorable criticisms of the writer in what has preceded on this mis- 
sionary subject. 

There is in America at this time, 1895, a celebrated man by the name 
of Robert G. Ingersoll, and his reputation is merited by his acknowl- 
edged mental abilities in the line of the civil law ; his services are always 
in great demand, and his time so fully occupied in the preparation and 
oratorical defence or prosecution of the most intricate and important 
questions of law that ever comes before the judicial tribunals, and his 
success is so common that it seems a fortunate circumstance that any 
client can secure his services in their behalf. It therefore seems strange 
and wonderful that he can find time to even think on theological sub- 
jects, and much more so that he dare to write and publish in the maga- 
zines such skeptical articles as most writers would never dare to offer, 
but any article from his pen is so rich in substance, and so bold and 
defiant in its presentation,that they are both designed to and actually pro- 
voke discussion and controversy that are both interesting and instructive 
to the average reader. While he prudently refrains from giving the full 
definition of all his beliefs, he gives enough definition of his unbelief to 
place him outside of orthodoxy, and which besides these writings he finds 
time to annually deliver in the large dries to large audiences, which,but for 
the admission tickets being placed at a high figure, no edifice would con- 
tain the crowd that are eager to listen to his instructions; and none that 
are so fortunate as to secure a seat ever regret its cost, but repeat it at 
every subsequent opportunity. He has published several volumes, such 
as " The Gods, and other lectures," " Prose-poems and Selections," 
u Lectures Complete," " Mistakes of Moses," and several others, and 
these all pass through several editions and find a ready sale. He is now 
engaged in his annual missionary excursion, as he tells his audience, 
" to do what I can to civilize my country," and he does this by under- 
mining both the Jewish and Christian's only hope, the " Inspired " Bible, 
and proving by its own contradictions and absurdities that it is the mere 
work of uninspired and lamentably fanatical and ignorant men. He 
goes further than Professor Briggs and Smith, who only dare doubt, for 
he not only dare doubt but deny, and prove his denials to be well 



316 The Skeptic's Defense. 

founded. As might be expected, this bold movement arouses the ani- 
mosity of the various orders of priests and theologains, who are driven 
to the alternative to either defend the Bible, or by silence admit no 
defence is any longer possible, and such an admission is fatal to the 
priesthood, and besides encourages further and bolder attacks by more 
determined and stronger men, till an entire collapse of this infernal 
imposition will be inevitable. 

Although it may be considered somewhat out of the ordinary prac- 
tice for an author to insert in a writing such as the foregoing, a subject 
bavin "• but a slight similarity to the one that constitutes its main objects, 
I have thought it advisable to write a few thoughts about a topic which 
occupies at the present time much interest, more especially to the female 
portion of every community,namely : "The right to use the Elective Fran- 
chise," or in other words, " to vote." This is a branch of the subject of 
woman's rights beyond the original scope of that movement, so I will,in 
what I have to say,confine myself to that particular branch of the subject. 
While I am willing to concede the honesty and purity of the motives 
of those who are the most prominent in this movement, which, as I 
understand it, is to benefit the female portion of our fallen humanity, I 
nevertheless doubt the wisdom or the prospect of success of any such 
movement, as these misguided advocates seem to hope and even expect 
will succeed at some future time, not very far distant. I fear they are 
misled by a poor judgment when they expect either success, or benefit, 
if success is had, therefrom. While as yet none of our statesmen of 
any note have been attacked by this most loathsome political leprosy, 
and only a few half crazy fanatics have fallen victims to it, and these 
would not be at large if our already over crowded lunatic asylums were 
not. cheated out of their appropriate occupants, but they should be, and 
they otherwise would be, shut up in high walled enclosures, where they 
could only injure one another, and make and destroy their own webs. 
No man of any note or consequence, as has been before observed, has 
ever given any countenance or strength to the ridiculous clamor raised 
by a few unamiable, wretched wives, and as many sour and embittered 
old maids, who have failed to become wives, whose absurd pretensions 
and bold, disgraceful conduct never fails to bring a blush of shame on 
every truly refined American woman. A suitable comparison to 
describe the movement to get equal suffrage in this state, by securing an 
amendment to our proposed new constitution, omitting the word male 
in prescribing the qualification for voters, is something like this: A 
half dozen grasshoppers under a fern bush can make a whole field in 
their vicinity ring with their persistent chink or noise, while a hundred 
or a thousand great cattle repose beneath the shade of the great trees, 



Why Women Ought Not to Aspire to Vote. 317 

chew the cud, and are silent. Do not imagine, therefore, you who 
make the most noise, are the only inhabitants of that field. By no 
means, for you are only a few shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud 
and troublesome, insects of the hour. There is not the slightest reason 
to doubt that all the true women on this continent earnestly believe that 
the day that invests them with the elective franchise, if it ever should 
come, would be the blackest day in the annals of any local portion of 
humanity, for it would, if universal in this land of liberty, ring the death 
knell of modern civilization, national prosperity, social morality and 
domestic happiness, and it would consign the race to a night of degrada- 
tion and horror, infinitely more horrible and appalling than would be a 
return to primeval barbarism, for then every exciting political contest 
would witness the revolting spectacle, greatly intensified, that is now a 
shame and disgrace to all our caucauses, by the addition of the loath- 
some presence of the lowest grade of female degradation and perversion, 
to counteract which would oblige the virtuous and intelligent, in self- 
defence, to be present , to neutralize and to counteract the ignorant and 
vicious of their sex, who, when they were unrestrained, would fraternize 
with their male companions of like instincts to themselves, and the 
result would be to elevate their own favorites to offices to which only 
the most virtuous and intelligent ought to aspire. These social outcasts 
have never known what it was to be anchored in the peaceful and 
blessed haven called home, and if man is ever insane enough to so mar 
the established social and domestic economy as to set woman afloat on 
the turbulent and roaring sea of politics, they will speedily become piti- 
able wrecks. Sooner than be a party to such an inversion of social 
order, I would welcome Turkish or even Mormon bondage, than to 
listen to the demoralizing tendencies of the doctrine of the equality of 
races, or even sexes. A few of our countrywomen are becoming dan- 
gerously learned, in their own estimation, at least, and the quality of 
their learning makes them troublesome, for these only half know, or 
mis-know. It is impossible for a man to hear from their lips or pens 
the word equality without a shudder, for there never was constructed a 
more untruthful statement than that all mankind are created or ever can 
become equal, or be equally entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happi- 
ness; for the diversity is as great as the individuals are numerous, and 
in every department of the animal creation the male is in every way, 
when the conditions surrounding them are the same, superior to the 
female, physically, intellectually and morally, and there is no occupation, 
from the battle field through all grades of human activity, to the most 
delicate female employments, in which the male does not excel, till you 
come to the home and its management for the male, and a mother for 



318 The Skeptic's Defense. 

his children, then the female excels. Their intellectual characteristics 
never can be merged or destroyed without outraging the decrees of 
nature, and sapping the foundations of domestic harmony. The sexes 
have been endowed by nature with distinctive intellectual characteristics, 
and no true woman should ever barter womanly delicacy and refine- 
ment for an ambition to mix in these male disgraceful political squab- 
bles. Erudition and effontery have inherent connection, consequently 
a woman has an unquestionable right to improve and refine her mind 
to any possible extent that her ambition and condition will admit of, 
but in her anxiety to parade what she has gleaned she must not forget 
the decorum and modesty without which she is both repulsive and mon- 
strous. It most certainly is reasonable that a truly refined woman, 
whose instincts are properly governed, should increase her use to her 
family and race by increasing' her knowledge. A female pedant, who 
is coarse and boisterous, or ambitious of going to congress, or making 
stump speeches, would be quite as unwomanly and unlovely in charac- 
ter, if ever so highly educated or refined, as if she was wholly illiterate. 
It is not on account of their superior learning or ability, which affects 
this country, and no other, with these unfortunate abnormal develop- 
ments, familiarly known by the title strong-minded women, but it is the 
misdirection of their energies, or in other words the one-sided partial 
nature of their education. A woman who, having a home, cannot be 
both contented and happy, busied with the ordinary womanly employ- 
ments, but must fancy it is her mission or right to practice law, preach 
the gospel, or go out lecturing, or practice medicine, would be a trouble- 
some, disagreeable personage, dethroned in her own realm, and, 
despised by their quondam subjects, roam as pitiable exiles, threatening 
to usurp man's kingdom, and monopolize his employments. When we 
scan the records of ancient history, we trace in every epoch the sover- 
eigns of the home of ambitious rulers, statesmen and philosophers, and 
it is there clearly proved by illustrious examples that the: borders of that 
feminine realm cannot be enlarged without subverting the great indis- 
pensable law of order. Woman has never in the past reigned by any 
right but concession, only at her home. If she is married, she has the 
right and always does, if she is worthy of it, live in the esteem and con- 
fidence of her husband and children, and not in the gilded and bedizened 
palaces of fashion, where thinly veiled vice and frivolity hold carnival, 
and in a sphere where social asps monopolize and conduct, so as to be 
degrading to all the finer instincts. If she is single, in the love of 
parents, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. If orphaned, she 
can find sympathy, gratitude and usefulness among the poor and 
afflicted. If she is ambitious > let her become a musician, sculptor, 



Women Have Every Right They Need Now. 319 

painter, writer, teacher, but in no case meddle with the scalpel or other 
anatomical pursuits, shun the rostrum in any cause ; but if you feel you 
must serve the government, do it by neither prayers or augers, but by so 
instructing your sons that they can do this, and you be silent. A mas- 
culine, or more properly, a strong-minded woman is always a disagree- 
able person, under all circumstances, and would stir up quite as much 
strife and contention while using ungrammatical language as if she was 
a perfect philologist. It is not vanity to believe, or error to teach, that 
the intelligent, refined, modest and virtuous women of this country, 
while they never clamor for the elective franchise, so as to include the 
degraded, vile, vicious, ignorant rabble of their own sex, yet they always 
have been, are, and always will be the custodians of national and social 
purity, and the sole agents who ever can succeed in arresting the tide of 
demoralization now breaking in a fearful torrent over this land of lib- 
erty. These virtuous wives and daughters of free America must be 
relied on to do in the future as they have done in the past, smite by their 
influence and their example the impure and vicious of both sexes, and, 
if they cannot wholly abolish, at least purify the shrines at which these 
worship. Let her jealously and persistently contend for every woman's 
right which is by nature hers, and has been by custom always conceded 
to her sex, such as the right to he learned, wise, noble, useful in her 
limited sphere, the right to influence and to exalt the circle in which she 
moves, the right to reach the sanctified position of mistress of her own 
household, the right to modify her husband's, her son's, her brother's 
opinions, if they consider her competent to advise them or guide them, 
the right to make her children ornaments to their nation and race, and 
a crown of glory to posterity, the right to advise, to urge and entreat, 
the right to be all that the phrase " A noble woman " includes. These 
are rights in abundance, and hence they do not need the right to vote, 
to harangue from the hustings, to trail her heavenly born purity in and 
through the dust and mire of political strife, to ascend the rostrums 
where only statesmen should go, but where she may by her influence, 
in a modest, mild way, send her husband, her son, or her brother, but 
where she can never aspire to go without by such a process disgracing 
all her womanhood. It is a trite, and to some extent, may be, a true 
proverb, that ''Those who rock the cradle where the human infant 
sleeps also rule the world." The tendency of this age is towards abso- 
lute equality, not only in civil rights, but also in sharing unearned 
wealth, which goes under the innocent and apparently harmless name of 
Socialism, or equality in all things, and this movement tends to under- 
mine the golden throne where every true woman rules the members of 
her own family. Every reform whose tendency is to strike down the 



320 The Skeptic's Defense. 

social and political distinction of the sexes inevitably will, by that 
result, crush the pillars that support woman's throne, and this is one of 
the dangers to be apprehended from the influence, unless it can be neu- 
tralized or destroyed, from these unfortunate and deluded females, mal- 
contents, who being unchecked and unrestrained by civil law, would, 
to carry out an insane idea of being injured or oppressed because they 
were denied the right to vote, inevitably destroy what semblance of lib- 
erty they now have, for it is one of the most dangerous situations a free 
people can ever be placed in, to advocate and permit universal, even 
male, suffrage for more than a numerical majority of those who cast 
the ballots to elect our rulers have no more intelligent perception of 
what this right carries with it, than so many cattle, for they are swayed 
by the designing knaves who are aspiring to positions of power and 
emolument, especially the latter, and unless this enormous and con- 
stantly increasing evil can be remedied in the near future, the liberties 
of the land are gone beyond recovery, and female suffrage, instead of, 
as they claim, tending to mitigate this evil, would only increase it, and 
thus cause a collapse of liberty and freedom. There has always been, under 
even monarchial nations, a few ambitious, discontented spinsters, who 
have so far unsexed themselves as to travel like Pandora over the land, 
if permitted, haranguing audiences, and these audiences, while patiently 
listening to them, and refraining from disturbing them, have always 
uniformly laughed at and despised them, and have pitied their insane 
clamor for influence and power in the national council; and while such 
women failed entirely to produce any good result, other more sensible 
women, such as Hannah More, in England, and Mrs. Stowe, in Amer- 
ica, while refraining from expressing or harboring any desire for enter- 
ing the political arena, and encountering men in debate, or by using 
the lecture platform, they sent forth instead those inimitable writings, 
that have done more to advance the cause of the rights of women than 
has all the eloquence of the strong-minded women of the whole world 
in all time. The ambition of a few women of any one or more of these 
United States to clamor for the elective franchise as a right, and from 
that as a starting point will persist in adding to this every right which 
they hope or intend will be secured by the use by them of this right, are 
but very little if at all conscious what conclusions societies which are 
composed of men only infer from such intemperate, unwomanly 
behavior. These mistaken creatures who, at the impulse of their own 
disposition, or the influence of example, are induced to despise or ignore 
the garb of modesty, and, instigated by a mere whim, so to lay aside the 
decent reserve of her sex, ought not to be surprised that men to whom 
she must apply, and on whose judgment she must depend, to secure any 



Women Are More Tyrannical Than Men. 321 

further rights than she now has, are by their bold and defiant conduct 
to not only ignore and despise her, but also to defy her, and when she 
thus forsakes the innate guide of her youth, she leaves herself open to 
every shameful remark that men can devise to her damage, and by thus 
leveling the barrier raised by nature she exposes the stronghold of 
female virtue, and will find, when too late for recovery, that what mod- 
esty has abandoned cannot long be retained by honor or self-respect. 

What a wonderfully strange being is a discontented, ambitious 
woman, who happens to live in free America, the only place in the whole 
world where a woman has any right but implicit, uncomplaining obedi- 
ence to man, who not only assumes but actually exercises over her the 
most exact and instant obedience and compliance to his authority, and 
at the same time denies to her the right to even hope she has a soul, 
likewise any right to the disposition or destiny of her body or her 
earnings. In free America woman has first dared to ask or even hope 
for equality of civil rights, and this boldness in her was made possible for 
the reason that the founders of this government made it too free by pro- 
claiming the false doctrine that all men are created free and equal. If it 
were true that all men are created free and equal, which they are not, for it 
is only infants who are born, not created, and they grow, some into men,if 
they live long enough, and the rest into women, that would furnish no 
reason why women ever arrive at equality with men in any branch of 
human acquirements or activities, and hence they have no right to 
aspire to men's capabilities. What great examples are found in history 
where women ever were great artists, inventors or statesmen, philoso- 
phers or generals, but, notwithstanding her inferiority, the generosity of 
man in this land of liberty has conferred on women as many rights as 
they need to render them contented and happy as a class. Of course, 
individuals can be found who are never satisfied unless they are masters, 
but the women of America, as a class, are ashamed and disgusted, the 
same as the men are, with the clamor and senseless agitation for the 
right of equal suffrage of a few, who have not been asked to agitate 
this question, but these monstrosities who go about getting up these 
monstrous petitions have volunteered to unsex themselves in their 
desire for notoriety. Of what avail is this movement now in progress, 
to procure and forward to the convention soon to assemble to revise 
and reconstruct the state constitution, an enormous petition of a million 
names, asking that the word " male " shall be omitted in the new consti- 
tution, where that word is used before the word citizen. Such a peti- 
tion means just nothing, for no counter petition, asking it to be retained, 
is necessary, because the fact that many millions have refused to sign 
such a petition is a sufficient indication that no such change or omission 



322 The Skeptic's Defense. 

is desired, because the main and practically the only reason these peti- 
tioners have for demanding this change is,that women are taxed in a few 
instances, such as where they have real estate in their own name, and 
yet they are not represented in the legislature who enact the laws that 
govern them, and which they must respect and obey, when they have 
not consented to these laws. Let us examine and see how much truth 
or sincerity there is in this senseless clamor. If there was in our tax 
laws any unjust or unequal discrimination against the property of 
women, then a claim of the sort they refer to would have some weight 
or importance, but the reverse of this is the fact; her property, when it is 
merged in that of another person, as a husband, father, brother, or a 
trustee, shares alike with theirs the expense of government and protec- 
tion, but when it is separate, much that was before taxed is exempt. A 
widow's dower is of course taxed as before, but she can vote in a case 
where money is to be raised for the purpose or education, at a school 
meeting, and as long as her property receives the protection from the 
state, it should continue to pay as before it always did for this protec- 
tion, and the little imaginary change that women's vote would produce 
is as, and more, likely to be injurious to them as beneficial, mere moon- 
shine, and hence men are justified in treating the whole subject as only 
worthy of ridicule and contempt, as the immense majority of women 
also do. 

On the horizon of almost every mind that is at least partially enlight- 
ened, there arises sometimes the spectral clouds of doubt and disbelief. 
What is to be done with these doubts? The weak and timid turn away, 
and try to forget, or else shiver in uncertainty mixed with apprehension, 
but the bold and brave man fears not to close upon and seize the terror 
in the strong grip of investigation, to find out whether it be a fact or 
c nly a phantom, and the result usually is, it proves to be a friend in dis- 
guise. What a profoundly interesting study it is to watch and investi- 
gate those lives in which the tendency to religious disbelief has been 
conscientiously accepted and lived out. While it may and sometimes 
does, result different, from what we might reasonably expect, it in most 
cases gives those who have gone so far in unbelief .as to reject such a 
conception of God as is revealed in the Bible, and even the Bible itself 
as a divine book, also a future life, and everything that a belief in such 
a life involves, still these persons live a pure life, and may have a lovable 
character morally, and as often do have as their opponents who believe 
all these things,and much more buoyancy of spirit,and every appearance 
of happiness more than is had by the average of those who look upon 
these unbelievers as monsters, whose final destiny it is fearful to con- 
template. These unbelieving persons can die happy, and have put on 



Why Any Religious Instruction is Pernicious. 323 

their tombstone this motto, or inscription: "I was not, afterwards I 
was conceived by my parents without the help or knowledge even of any 
such God as the Bible or Christianity reveals, I lived, enjoyed and suf- 
fered, and did more or less work ; now I am not, and grieve not." It is 
well to remember that the human family is made up of individuals whose 
intellects differ, not only each from every other, but also from itself in 
different conditions, such as youth and age, which fact makes age more 
competent by reason of experience to form sound and satisfactory con- 
clusions, and hence because it is an object for age to be sure that they 
mistake not as to their final destiny, when death closes both their animal 
and intellectual life simultaneously, for then it is too late to correct 
mistakes. Youth, when falsely instructed, as they usually are in a 
religious way, in consequence of such instruction, imbibe a multitude of 
false notions, which later in life may be corrected if instruction is of 
such a reverse nature that experience shall demonstrate that these first 
received notions are false, and hence the wisest course for the young, 
inexperienced person to take is to not anchor to an abstraction or 
unprovable assumption, but instead of doing so seek for more definite 
proof or demonstration; and this is to be done by finding some such 
sure foundations as is to be had from science, which, when rightly 
apprehended, leads to absolute knowledge, for any position in so 
important a subject as most people regard a future life to be, less than 
absolute knowledge, which is not so much as promised by any system of 
theology, is no better than mere guess work, and hence this is worthless 
trash when information is required on such a subject as eternity, the 
being of God, and the revelation contained in any so-called sacred book. 
These are all, as they have always been, mere myths, founded on priest- 
craft, jugglery and fraud, for an object easy to discover, and safe to dis- 
card as nothing better than sand or froth, of no use, but only pernicious 
and unspeakably vile, and the only consolation or fancied worth such a 
belief has ever had, as is contrived and palmed off on these honest, 
unsuspecting victims of priestcraft, is what can be derived from the 
remark, " It is well to die if there be Gods, and it is sad to live if there 
be no Gods/' Joy and grief, or happiness and misery, in various degrees 
of alternation, always has been and must always continue to be the 
destiny of universal humanity, and this without any reference to any 
form of belief or disbelief, hence hope and fear also alternate in like 
proportions, and so long as this result is wholly unavoidable and insep- 
arable from life in every individual, a complete dismissal of the whole 
subject, by an absolute disbelief in all kinds and degrees of religious fol 
de rol, and an utter rejection of every form and degree of superstitition, 
is far more rational, and hence more satisfactory. What a wonderful 



324 The Skeptic's Defense. 

mistake has been made by theologians and bigots in all past time, and 
the same mistake is being now made by the same class,in neglecting and 
overlooking science, and not only so, but in actually opposing and 
sneering at scientific men and all their discoveries, because they fancy, 
and rightly so in most cases, that if science is true the Bible and any 
form of religion resting on it is not true, for any feeble mind can detect 
many and glaring discrepancies, so that it becomes necessary for the 
priest, in his shallow and feeble manner, on account of his ignorance, to 
endeavor to reconcile one with the other. There is no exaggeration in 
such a statement as the following: That if one-tenth part of the time 
and expense that has been worse than wasted in the study and teaching 
of theology, by all grades of priests, in every form of religion, had been 
instead devoted to the study and teaching of only one branch of a real 
science, and that one named physiology, not by any means the greatest 
of the many that might be named, which treats of the structure of not 
only the bodies of men, but also incidentally of the mind, these priests 
and their pupils would have discovered that it is neither possible or 
desirable for any two individuals to either look alike, or think alike on 
any subject, or even for the same individual to agree with himself for 
any considerable length of time; therefore, what folly to expect or 
desire to introduce among men any permanent universal system, except 
it is founded on scientific demonstration, or capable of being so founded 
by further study and investigation ; such a wild notion is not only mon- 
strously visionary, but it is absolutely pernicious and dangerous ; hence 
all this worry and speculation about eternity or a future life is not only a 
waste of time and energy for every individual who has either written or 
spoken on this subject, but also a waste of materials, and its agitation 
has been and is the cause of more insanity, suicides, poverty, bloody 
wars, personal hate, and contention between individuals, communities 
or nations, and the world as a whole, than all other causes combined, 
and to offset all this enormous misery has never produced any good 
result, either on individuals, communities or nations, notwithstanding a 
vast amount of priestly oratory is lyingly pretending that to. this one 
agency of the gospel of Christ is due all the advance the race has ever 
made beyond the savage state. Various causes prevent success in put- 
ting in practice, to any but a very limited extent, any very radical alter- 
ation of the natural condition found among the various races of men, 
such as climate compelling each race reared in a given climate to adjust 
himself to his condition, and no other, giving his intellectual faculty 
such a bias that he can conceive of no other. Another cause is food; 
animal food and vegetable food will inevitably cause a corresponding 
variation in both the quantity and quality of the human brain, adapting 



The Necessity of the Salvation Army. 325 

each class to such pursuits and occupations as they are capable to apply 
and understand; location, whether in cities or in the country, in heathen 
or civilized lands; conditions, whether rich or poor, isolated or having 
companions, facilities for acquiring useful knowledge; the amount, 
the quality and cultivation of the brain, in which resides the intellectual 
faculties ; the amount and kind of labor or recreation ; the personal hab- 
its, in the use or avoidance of stimulants, such as intoxicating bever- 
ages, opium, tobacco, or other narcotics; the excess or absence of sleep, 
and thousands more of variations, which are positively inseparable from 
human experience, make it not only impossible but undesirable to have 
any condition but constant change in every individual that ever has or 
that ever will live, and all this worry and useless effort to have uniform- 
ity on any but a scientific question has never yet produced any appre- 
ciable result, nor it never will; but just now a more aggressive spasm 
seems to have seized and made active and energetic some of these new 
religions, such as Christianity and Mahometanism, who have just sent 
missionaries to New York to try to civilize this benighted nation, and the 
youngest of them all, Mormonism, flourishes unhindered, and promises 
to be permanent and progressive. Christianity of the orthodox variety 
has so improved upon its predecessors as to alter the conditions of 
membership, to keep full the ranks that death makes in their numbers. 
The former requirement of a new birth, or regeneration, has been found 
too slow in its operation to fill up their vacant places, even with the aid 
of noted evangelists, who are experts in soul saving, and these experts 
are too few and costly to make it an object to employ them, so Christian 
Endeavor Societies have become the medium through which spurious 
converts are provided, to fill the gaps that death and desertion makes in 
the various churches, other than Episcopal and Roman Catholic; these 
already secure all the children at birth, and so fasten their grip upon all 
infants, through the humbug of baptism, that it is very rare that one 
escapes from them, so that these keep the number from diminishing, 
and perhaps slowly increasing their membership. 

Another spurious Christian movement, which has not yet reached 
the dignity of being recognized as a distinct church, but is designated 
the Salvation Army, because it has adopted a military form in the names 
of its officers, as General, Colonel, Captain, etc., these have lately spread 
and become numerous in many Christian lands, and the principal 
leaders were once noted evangelists, but were thrown out of employment 
on account of some more or less heretical teachings, who started an 
independent crusade of soul saving among social outcasts and ex-crim- 
inals, and took the form of military discipline instead of any creed, 
requiring mere enlistment when they were soldiers of the cross, and so 



326 The Skepttc's Defense. 

mixed together the cross and flag that patriotism and piety were 
blended. These, taken as a whole, leaders and followers, are a wild, 
ignorant, half insane rabble, who imagine the)', in common with other 
persons also have souls which they are anxious to have saved, and are 
taught that this is the only way, as this army will in time become numer- 
ous and strong, so that they can demolish the devil and all his works, 
and put their fictitious Christ on the throne, from which he has been 
kept by this devil. This promise, like every other Christians have made 
to entice followers, will fail. 

In order to see the condition, in a social way, the human race 
would have been in universally, without ever having heard of any form 
of religion, and remaining entirely destitute of the slightest intimation or 
idea of any God or any future life, such a condition can be learned about 
by consulting a recent book of the " Voyage of the Ship Vega," by the 
celebrated scientist and navigator, Baron Nordenskiold. This book is 
one of the four which he has lately published, in relation to this voyage 
to find the lost ship and crew named Jeannette, and is entitled, " A 
study of the tribe of Siberian Chook-chees, living in the extreme 
Northeast point of the continent of Asia." This tribe of savages, or 
at best barbarous human beings, number several thousands, just how 
many has not yet been ascertained, and they had never before the advent 
of these people been interfered with by any civilized people, and in fact 
they were never known to exist till this navigator, in his voyage to dis- 
cover, if possible, what had been the fate of the lost company who had 
been sent out in the Jeannette, to try to find the northeast passage, found 
them, and has given to the world, in this book of two hundred octavo 
pages, a long and both interesting and instructive account concerning 
this strange people, and this book furnishes an answer to the question 
Christian priests always ask, when they encounter an unbeliever in 
debate : " What do you suppose would be the condition of the human 
race if entirely destitute of any form of religious instruction or belief? " 
This is the answer : These people are all contented and happy, without 
any form of government, without any kind of social restraint, unless 
public opinion is a restraint, without any religion, unless you call 
vague fetichism a religion, and without so much as even an idea of any 
kind of God, or hope or expectation of any future life, and yet in this 
condition is found a good degree of comfort, perfect security for life and 
property, unbounded hospitality and a strong feeling of sympathy and 
good will, generously extended to each other, and to any strangers 
who visit them. Their women are invariably well treated, and are 
freely consulted by the men with reference to matters of business, and 
may hold property in their own right. Within the family the most per- 



Description of the Jain Religion. 327 

feet unanimity prevails, so that a stranger visiting them never hears a 
cross word exchanged either between husband and wife, parents and 
children, or between the married pair who own the tent, and the unmar- 
ried who occasionally live in it. The children are never either scoMed or 
chastised, and yet their behavior is perfect, so much so that their 
behavior in the tent is equal or superior to that of the best brought up 
children in European countries in their parlors. The men are without 
exception honest, good humored and obliging, and the criminal statis- 
tics of the tribe are impossible to get, for want of any crimes. Such a 
state of things is the ideal state of human society, in a realized form, in 
a state of nature, and is far beyond anything which Christianity, fully 
carried into practice, has ever produced, or is capable of. Such a revela- 
tion as this most certainly strikes a heavy blow at the root of all heathen 
reform societies and all missionary enterprise, and at the root of Christ- 
ian civilization itself, and if any one doubts the truth of these statements, 
they can be abundantly established and verified, for it is only some fif- 
teen years since these people were visited by a whole ship's crew, who 
wintered among them, and whose captain wrote this book wholly about 
these people, and it can be had at the book stores. Imagine, if you can, 
this state of things extended and become universal, as it is capable of, 
and would have been if priestly humbug and superstition could be 
entirely abolished and men allowed the full liberty to exist unmolested 
by their neighbors. 

Perhaps it is not generally known that during the late World's Fair 
or Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, there was held what was named a 
Parliament of Religions, at which was represented by delegates nearly 
all forms of religion now extant in the world, such as the Jewish, Christ- 
ian, Mahometan, Buddhist, Jains, and many others. One of the dele- 
gates sent there by the Jains has lingered in this country for the purpose 
of studying its institutions, etc., and for this purpose has traveled exten- 
sively, and lectured in many of the cities, to enlighten and instruct the 
people as to the merits of his form of religion, and claiming for it the 
greatest value as well as the greatest antiquity of any form now on earth, 
and in reality the parent of all others. He has disclosed much strange 
information respecting the customs and beliefs, which appear to its 
devotees of the first importance, and so well adapted to promote the best 
results to humanity, that its universal application would remove all the 
evils that afflict human society. iVirchard R. Ghandi, in an interview, 
says: " One fact of which we are very proud is that no Jainite has ever 
committed murder. We eat no meat or fish and drink no wine; these 
are regarded as pollution. I am fifty years old, and I have never tasted 
meat in my life; my diet is the same in this country as in India, vege- 



328 The Skeptic's Defense. 

tables, nuts, fruits and cereals; half of the people of India can get only 
one meal a day, and the poverty of the lower classes can not be compre- 
hended by Americans, so that absolute necessities here are luxuries in 
India. One general criticism I would like to make as to the money 
sent to India for missionary purposes. It is wasted, mostly because it 
is spent for evangelization, rather than in civilization and education. 
What does it avail to convert a lower caste Hindoo unless you educate 
him? Nothing at all, only makes him worse. You must give money 
for education instead of evangelization. Our religion is simplv science, 
or scientific topics, as they affect the body and the mind, and these are 
closely interwoven with religious subjects." " Can you," I ask," convert 
such a people to Christianity?" '" Most assuredly not, and you ought not 
to wish to." This ends the interview. This is only one of many hundred 
similar religions entertained at various times by the human family, and 
each thinks his own superior, and to sum it all up, it amounts to this: 
In old age, after having pursued an inquiry which has always engaged 
the most earnest attention of all the human family, of all creeds and 
nations, it is not possible to come any nearer a solution of the following 
questions than they had at the beginning of the inquiry: Why am I, 
and why do I exist? I cannot live without wishing to know; therefore, 
since I cannot reach this knowledge, life in a true sense is impossible, 
and the whole question and answer amounts to this, and no more : In 
the infinitude of time, in the infinitude of matter, in the infinitude of 
space, a cell is formed, how or when or where I know not; it exists a 
moment, and bursts. That cell is I, and although this may seem a 
gloomy sophism, it nevertheless is the whole result of the supreme, con- 
stant labor of the mind of all humanity of all times, past, present and 
future, and can only be the result by all men's researches, and no good 
purpose would be served if such knowledge could be realized; but a 
vain hope is not to be cherished, no matter how consoling or how rea- 
sonable it may seem, but at the same time, in a certain sense, I may con- 
cede it to be both lawful and a duty for a person, if one has hopes, to 
guard against any influence that may interfere with such hopes, but only 
on the clearly ascertained condition that such hopes are well founded. 
The priest will tell you it is innate to all humanity to desire and to have 
a more or less extensive apprehension of some religion. I deny this, 
and say that heredity alone can explain the cause, and science can prove 
that it was not so in the primitive man any more than it is in other ani- 
mals; therefore, what an unspeakable outrage it is to attack any impres- 
sible mind, whether old or young, such as infants have at the outset in 
high civilizations, and savages have in mature age, and give it any bias 
towards any science even, but an intensely greater outrage to give them 



Where the Worst Forms of Crime is Found. 329 

any religious bias, for no part of such teaching has more than an empiric 
or ethical value, being incapable of any proof; but still it may for some 
minds have an imperceptible value as a means of culture, for all these 
intricate subjects should be kept in reserve for the mature, cultivated 
intellects to grapple with, later in life, free from bias, or being filled with 
impressions less than half true, and more than half false. The discov- 
eries constantly being made by scientists in various directions, and the 
inventions of non-religious men, such as the steam engine, the power 
printing press," the electric motor and telegraph, the photograph, and 
thousands of others of less value, are all made by men not only outside 
and independent of religious influence, but are directly hostile to such 
influence, and hence in countries where Christianity and the Bible has 
never been heard of, a higher civilization can be shown, and a purer state 
of morals, than any Christian land has ever? produced, or that is capable 
of producing by that influence alone. It would be impossible to find a 
place among savages where such revolting crimes are found in such 
prodigious numbers as in this free America, and the great majority of 
the worst are committed by hypocritical church members, much more 
often Roman Catholics than any others, and the horrible vices not 
strictly criminal, such as fornication, adultery, lying, adulteration of 
food and drink, intemperance, and many others like them, are so com- 
mon as to attract but little notice. That enormous vice of gambling 
is unknown among any religious men except Christians, and those 
among whom Christians have goneo 

It is perfectly safe to assume that if the natural instinct of implicit 
confidence of an inferior or undeveloped intellect had never been so far 
imposed upon, by the introduction of any form of supernatural or super- 
stitious deception, as to cause doubt to lead to investigation, and inves- 
tigation to require absolute proof, credulity would still be everywhere 
the universal condition of the human race. But as skepticism is at pres- 
ent demanding of absurdity adequate proof, and as no proof is forth- 
coming, candor requires the instant rejection of all such absurdity, as, 
for instance, is the case when miracles are introduced to substantiate an 
impossible statement, for a miracle, if any such thing could be produced, 
is simply the violation of established and inviolable natural laws by sus- 
pending their operation for the time being, without any valid reason 
why such suspension was necessary. This was never actually done, for 
it would be just as impossible for an infinite being, who alone could or 
would establish such laws, to violate his own laws, as it would be for a 
finite being to instinctively know and observe without deviation such 
infinite law, if it could be made evident by proof that the being who 
established natural law had an actual existence. The introduction of the 



330 The Skeptic's Defense. 

supernatural by the imposters who first invented that absurdity, and its 
propagation by subsequent impostors, has caused all the human family, 
by these impostors taking possession of the children in all ages and 
countries, to become so thoroughly impressed by the reality of the 
unreal supernatural, that now science finds it very difficult, and in most 
cases impossible, to dislodge it, and the religious element always opposes 
science if it seems to conflict with the supernatural; hence skepticism 
has to fight not only an open but an imaginary foe, which the Bible or 
sacred book of all religions hold forth, and offers us as proof, and which 
we reject as spurious and of no value, any more than to be of use to 
any imposition, which this sacred book, by allowing its unproved 
assumptions the same or greater force than demonstration, when not 
made by means of divine revelation, however conclusive, can overcome. 
This view is the worst form of big'otry, and, when persisted in, makes a 
fanatic of its victim, and thus closes his mental faculty so as to make him 
incapable of using it to any good purpose. 

Such a result is reached when any creed or religious constitution is 
made by a high authority of ecclesiastics, and used as a basis on which to 
found any dogma or doctrine which requires the assent of any candidate 
for the office of a priest or minister of any branch of church organiza- 
tion, and is also in a modified form assented to before the applicant for 
membership to any of these bodies called churches is admitted, and the 
reasoning faculty is thereby closed,so as to forever prevent investigation. 
It has always been the peculiarity of orthodox Christianity that those 
who are selected and ordained as preachers, to unfold its mysteries and 
its value as an addition to mere morality, to parade and make very prom- 
inent the consolation it affords on the death bed, when the soul, on 
leaving the body, would otherwise be obliged to go alone over the river 
of Jordan, which signifies the passage from earth to glory beyond the 
grave, as the literal passing over the river that formed the boundary 
between the Arabian desert and the land of Canaan had to be passed by 
the Israelites, before Canaan could be reached, forgetting that the figure 
there sought to be made to apply has not the slightest parallel ; for the 
first business of the military body which went over that river, dry shod, 
necessitating a miracle to be wrought to enable them to do so, which 
ought to be sufficient to cause the whole story to be unhesitatingly 
rejected as a lie, not only this, but there was a continual struggle 
between the invaders of this country and its former occupants, which 
lasted as long as that rascally set of invaders were able to fight, and in 
the end they never were masters of but a small province called Judea, 
and that was eventually taken from them by the Romans, and they were 
driven out as they deserved to be. If that is to be the type of those 



No Expressions on a Death Bed Are of Any Value. 331 

who go from earth to heaven, very few will care to make much prepara- 
tion. This, to most people who come under the priestly influence and 
instruction, and who never investigate or think for themselves, seems to 
be a plausible reason, and one which, if there was any way to test its 
value, ought to be sufficient to cause universal acceptance; but inasmuch 
as nothing has been ascertained on that subject, and never will be, but 
conjecture only, and as the Jew, the infidel, the atheist, and in fact every 
form of skepticism, has in the past furnished as many or more specimens 
of heroic fortitude and courage when in immediate prospect of death, in 
proportion to the relative number, this preparation is in itself of no va'ue, 
and is not peculiar to any form of religious belief, and ought not to 
have any influence to cause any one to rely upon it as any preparation 
to die peacefully. There are so many circumstances attending and pre- 
ceding the close of every adult or mature life, that no uniformity of 
mental or bodily suffering is possible, and none of the expressions that 
are used by any individual at that time are of the least importance, 
whether of hope/ or despair; they are simply the natural result of false 
instruction, and are as unreliable as any other form of mental disease, 
for the mind inevitably shares whatever suffering and weakness which at 
that time afflicts and weakens the body, and as far as any one at present 
knows, or in the future ever will know, dies with the body, the same as 
is universally admitted in all Christian countries is the case with all the 
various grades and species of the lower animals. Science makes no dis- 
tinction; the same immutable or unchangeable law of nature reduces 
every form of animal and also of vegetable life to the elements from 
which they were derived, and no exception to that destiny has ever been 
and none can ever be made in favor of the human animal, and no 
good, or sufficient reason has ever been shown and none ever will be 
shown why any law of nature should be suspended or interrupted in his 
behalf; it is only assumption, without even a shadow of probable truth to 
give it vitality. 

It is perfectly safe and proper to assume that, if the natural instinct of 
implicit confidence of an inferior or undeveloped intellect had never 
been so far imposed upon, by the introduction of any form of supernat- 
ural or of superstitious deception, as to cause doubt to lead to investi- 
gation, and investigation require absolute proof, credulity would still be 
everywhere the universal condition of the human race. But as skepticism 
is at present, as far as the comparatively small number which skeptics 
are in proportion to the whole number who are given over to credulity, 
demanding of absurdity adequate proof, and as no proof is furnished, 
candor requires the immediate rejection of all such absurdity, as is the 
case when miracles are introduced, to substantiate or to make seem 



332 The Skeptic's Defense. 

probable an otherwise impossible statement; for a miracle is simply the 
reverse or unnatural operation of nature's laws, by suspending its 
operation for the time being, without giving any valid reason for such 
suspension, or why it was necessary. This never was actually done, for 
it would be just as impossible for an infinite being to violate his own law 
as it would be for a finite being to instinctively, at the beginning of his 
existence, know and obey such law, if it could be made evident by sat- 
isfactory proof that the being who established natural law had an actual 
existence. The introduction of the supernatural by the set of impostors 
who first invented that absurdity, which for many ages before the date 
given as the period when the human race began to live, as is held by the 
Christian to be only some six thousand years ago, was in full operation, 
and has been propagated by all subsequent impostors, and is now being 
fortified by the present race of religious impostors, has caused the 
human family, by these several successive generations of impostors get- 
ting possession of the children, and of those who, being of adult age, are 
stjl intellectual children, as savages cr barbarous nations are in that 
condition until civilized by the introduction and the comprehension of 
science, art and commerce, and in all countries, in all ages, to become 
so thoroughly impressed by its reality that science and art find it nearly 
impossible to overcome and dislodge it, for the religious element of any 
community always opposes science and discourages learning if it con- 
flicts with the supernatural; hence skepticism has to fight and overcome 
not only an open but an imaginary foe, which the sacred books, eman- 
ating from the impostors who were the founders of all religions, have 
invented, and were written by, as they assert, divine inspiration and 
direction, holds up and offers its votaries as proof of its genuineness and 
value, and which all skeptics reject as spurious and pernicious. The 
intolerance of the Christian bigot is more intense and hateful than that 
of any other form of belief, whether religious or secular, and the reason 
of such implacable hatred of those who dare to question any of their 
unfounded assumptions is because no other in their estimation is gen- 
uine, and the genuine alone deserves to subsist, and will ultimately 
exterminate and supersede the spurious, for his vanity, has been stimu- 
lated by the declaration of the impostor who founded the system to 
which he belongs, telling him in so many words he is the salt of the 
earth and the light of the world in all time. The Christian church is 
indebted to science for being able to overthrow and abolish all miracles, 
as all the Christian teachers now say the day of miracles is past when 
asked why miracles are not now had, and these discoveries of scientific 
men have always been made by men outside of the church, and the hier- 
archy of the church have always and do now oppose every discovery in 



Why Science Can Never Agree With Revelation. 333 

science that is in seeming conflict with what they term revelation or 
inspiration till in spite of their opposition it gets sufficient support to be 
able to stand alone, and the church then pretends to discover that science 
and revelation harmonize. The absurd statements recorded in the first 
chapter of Genesis were received without question till geology had so far 
examined the structure of the earth that more time was required than 
was there allowed when ascertained facts would require millions of ages 
to complete the formation of the first strata of rocks and a like period for 
each subsequent formation and now we find these defenders of inspira- 
tion admitting days to mean indefinite periods and therefore science and 
revelation harmonize. This is a weak admission but weak as it is has 
been forced upon an unwilling bigoted set of religious impostors to 
partly satisfy a credulous and confiding set of their dupes who otherwise 
might become too skeptical for further control and deception to satisfy. 
Skepticism is never met with in weak minds, for they are too indolent 
to make sufficient investigation or examination of any proposition 
requiring any extended mental effort, to be able to arrive at any definite 
conclusion, and too indifferent to care what conclusion is reached. It 
is the weak minds of any community who are influenced in favor of 
any form of religious imposition that the hypocritical impostor, who is 
himself too shrewd to believe any portion of the absurd statements he 
makes, and the still more absurd and silly proofs he offers to gain 
adherents and pretend to earn his salary, that constitute the greater part 
of the converts to any or all forms of religious belief. If there are any 
strong ones among them, they are only hypocrites, to aid and abet the 
imposition and share in the spoils to be extracted' from the dupes. As 
a familiar example, the skeptic can cite the one started in recent times 
by that insignificant impostor, Joe Smith, who alone actually originated 
the Mormon delusion, which has far exceeded the Christian, consider- 
ing the short period which has witnessed its beginning and development 
into an organized power, sufficient to cause national solicitude as to its 
future management, and a well grounded apprehension that it will out- 
live Christianity itself. Another recent humbug of the second advent 
of Christ, who never even has been shown to have made a first advent, 
has disturbed and distracted all that portion of the church outside of the 
Roman Catholic portion of that body, and is likely to remain ^perma- 
nent source of discord and division, for the fact of such reappearance is 
admitted, but the only dispute is as to the time of such second advent, 
and this false and foolish imposition has extended to the ignorant sav- 
ages of the border of the most Christian nation of the world, so that 
much bloodshed has been the result of an attempt to dislodge this 
wicked imposition, and much more will yet be required, for religious 



334 The Skeptic's Defense. 

fanaticism dies hard, for these weak minds are in strong bodies, and are 
full of superstition, which is easy to stimulate, but hard to subdue. 
Another still more foolish and wild outbreak of superstitious fanati- 
cism, and of the most recent beginning, is the Salvation Army, who are 
aggressive and numerous, and although directed and managed by the 
impostor who contrived this scheme to endeavor to include the outcast 
portion of the community, who were to be reached by out door labor, 
and whose mental ability was of the lowest order, still, under the emo- 
tional excitement which could be brought into use by a magnetic orator, 
who had nothing to say but to relate an imaginary experience of himself 
or herself, for both sexes preach without previous preparation, so as to 
save an equal number of the two sexes, and thus to propagate and con- 
tinue the imposition and increase the number by future births. Many 
more similar examples might be cited, but enough is revealed to show 
that any foolish and weak imposition has always found sufficient fools 
to begin any imposition, and in nearly every case to make it permanent, 
when ignorance united to superstition has been allowed to have undis- 
puted sway. The exceptions, embracing some better class of mental 
ability, who, if left without any religious bias till adult age, would not 
without convincing proof accept any attempted imposition, are not so 
left, but have been so early and thoroughly instructed, that on reaching 
maturity, if this instruction has been continued scarcely ever allow one 
doubt to cloud their former belief, but seek to continually fortify and 
strengthen their early impressions, not daring to let go of the anchor of 
faith for fear of shipwreck on the, to them, treacherous sea of unbelief, 
because such a process involves less mental effort and gives sufficient 
satisfaction, and every populous community can furnish the required 
number of flat heads to give at least a feeble support to the representa- 
tive of one or more sects of Christian ministers, and in some cases a 
liberal support, when the individual so employed is able to make a 
suitable impression and give satisfaction. Skepticism in general is mere 
doubt or unbelief in any proposition which, in the way it is presented to 
the mature mind, seems to require proof, because without such proof it 
is inadmissible; hence, when any statement is made claiming to emanate 
from a divine source, through a human medium, for the instruction or 
information of other human or intelligent beings, who are seeking this 
instruction, it is required that it be of such a probable or possible kind, 
and so in conformity with the operation of nature's laws, as are com- 
prehended and understood by the beings who are seeking this instruc- 
tion, that they can understand and receive it, or else it is not only their 
duty, but they are obliged to reject it. Of this description are many of 
the statements of both the old and new testament scriptures; they are in 



'Credulity Easier Than Investigation. 335 

uircct coniiicfc and antagonism with the known and easily demonstrated 
and self-evident natural laws, and no one at the present stage of mental 
development is ignorant enough or credulous enough to assign any 
other reason for such statements than that they are miracles performed 
by the author of nature's laws. It is therefore the easiest way out of any 
difficult or absurd statement for a weak mind to believe, on an unsup- 
ported assertion of an unknown writer, that this universe and all it con- 
tains was made out of nothing in six days, and if it had been six seconds 
it would be no more incredible than it is, than to examine the teachings 
of science, which prove it to be a lie. 

It is much easier to believe and admit the statement that the sun 
and moon stood still for six hours, to permit a horrible slaughter of 
thousands of innocent human beings, to gratify the brutal savagery of 
a Jewish general, than it is to estimate what would be the inevitable 
result of a solid body, moving in a rotary direction at the rate of a 
thousand miles an hour, when both the earth and all its inhabitants 
would be instantly annihilated, and the whole solar system would tumble 
into ruin. It is easier to believe that the prophet, so called Elijah, went 
to heaven in a chariot of fire on the wings of a whirlwind, after the 
wantonly murdering in cold blood four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, 
than to believe he went to hell, as he richly deserved. It is easier to 
believe another renegade prophet, so called by the name of Jonah, 
could have remained in the whale, without air or food, and that the 
whale could not digest such a morsel, and delivered him up alive anel 
well after trying for three days and nights to digest and assimilate him, 
than it is to ascertain by the aid of ascertained facts, from the discover- 
ies of the fact by thousands of witnesses, who have asserted that the 
throat of the whale would not permit the passage of any food that was 
not previously thoroughly masticated. It is also much easier to admit 
the security of another humbug of a prophet, called Daniel, when put 
into a den of wild lions, and also admit that Shadrach, Meshach and 
Abednego could live and thrive when in a furnace that was seven times 
as hot as it would require to melt cast iron, than it is to look for the 
proof to refute such absurd lies. 

And when we get tired of these old testament lies, what better success 
do we meet with in the new testament? The very first few verses intro- 
duce us to the biggest lie thus far found, but as we proceed we shall 
find, if possible, still larger ones. The birth of a man child, without 
human father, by a virgin, without destroying the proof of virginity 
which every Jew husband is entitled to find present at marriage. Every 
adult mind ought to at once refuse to read another word, but close and 
destroy a book containing such a miserable lie as this, but as curiosity 



336 The Skeptic's Defense. 

is stimulated to watch the career of such a monstrosity, we lose sight of 
him entirely, till, when twelve years of age, he attempts to elude his 
parents and go off by himself, but he is not permitted to do this, and 
is recovered and kept out of sight for eighteen years more, when he is 
of age, and can legally shirk for himself, which he proceeds to do, and 
we next find him persuading a cousin of his, about his age, who also 
had left his parents, to administer to him the rite of Baptism, for what 
purpose no one has ever tried to explain, for he had, at the eighth day 
of infancy, been circumcised, to make him a genuine Jew by the law of 
Moses. 

The science of astronomy was so little understood and so slightly 
developed when the sacred books, so called, were written, that the writ- 
ers thereof, although pretending that they were divinely instructed as to 
the how and what to write, made so many mistakes with the subject as 
to excite derision among modern astronomers. One of these mistakes 
was that the earth, including land and water, was flat and stationary, and 
all heavenly bodies except the sun and moon were also stationary. 
This imperfect knowledge caused the mistake of the flood to seem prob- 
able, and the consequent destruction of all living animals who lived on 
its surface, and also the accompanying story of the ark and its contents, 
and also the construction of the tower of Babel, and the origin of all the 
various languages now existing, and many more like these, so that we 
must conclude that these absurd and foolish stories are lies, or the dis- 
coveries of science that can be proved true are lies. The skeptic is not 
long in deciding which to choose. It is not the unreasonable demand 
of the skeptic of all grades, to require any statement that is in conflict 
with established and the hitherto universally observed natural way such 
events have so far always occurred, such as the account of the birth of 
the individual who it is asserted by the Christian was the founder of his 
system of religion, which is so monstrously in conflict with universal 
human experience, and also in all forms of propagation of all grades of 
animal life, that such an improbable and absolutely impossible story 
should be distinctly and unmistakably proved, beyond the possibility of 
doubt, instead of the mere unsupported statement of an obscure and 
unknown individual, of whose existence even no proof is to be found, 
and it is a disgraceful admission that there has been found enough 
credulity, stupidity and ignorance to allow such a downright lie to 
become so firmly established, in the nearly two thousand years that has 
elapsed since this lie was started, that a long time will be required to 
prove that it is a lie to the satisfaction of the flat skulls who have been 
fools enough to so far refuse to inquire as to its probable truth, for as 
long as it remains strong enough to attract ability enough to success- 



Why a Mere Hope of Heaven Ts Worthless. 337 

fully defend it from its foes, by furnishing the money on which this 
ability is able to subsist and fatten, it will defy such weak attempts as 
have been made to overcome and destroy it, as skeptics are prevented to 
more than privately entertain any hostility, on account of the unfavor- 
able impression such hostility, openly expressed, would have on them 
by their associates in the several communities among which they reside, 
and to which they look for patronage, if in any kind of mercantile bus- 
iness, or on account of social intercourse. Every one who has been 
bold enough to openly oppose any generally admitted statements, that 
are embodied in the creeds of any given orthodox denomination among 
whom he resides, and more especially if he has once belonged to any 
such denomination, has been made to feel and realize the displeasure of 
those who were formerly his associates and customers, by their with- 
drawing from him their patronage, and avoiding his company, for no 
other reason than a wish to punish him for doing what he was obliged 
to do, or else act the part of hypocrite, in consequence of having 
received increased light and knowledge on a certain subject, which 
before had been wanting, and. which would also cause those who still 
adhere to former erroneous beliefs to change their own, if they would 
permit such light to shine. This hesitation to outwardly avow changed 
beliefs is the principal cause of all the hypocrisy every where to be met 
with, in every organized society of Christians and other religious fan- 
atics, and also is the principal cause of the indifference so universally 
manifested among those whose duty it is to be both zealous and liberal 
to not only keep alive the church to which he belongs, but to secure its 
prosperity, and widen and strengthen its influence, instead of (as is 
everywhere apparent) permitting it to languish and finally perish for 
want of support. All of this, to those who are honest and sincere in 
their estimation of the value of Christian instruction, deplorable result, 
is caused by skepticism, and the skepticism is itself caused by mature 
minds, by study and reflection, becoming enlightened on any given sub- 
ject, by proof to them sufficient to cause the abandoning such previous 
beliefs. With all due respect for those who would, on account of their 
honesty or sincerity, be caused a degree of uneasiness in proportion to 
the strength of their hope of happiness in a future life, the skeptic 
usually refrains to cause such uneasiness, when he is not prepared to 
offer them anything of. equal value in exchange for such loss of their 
unfounded hope; but, on the contrary, when he meets with those who 
have no such hope, but are tormented by an unfounded fear of future 
despair and misery, he seeks to remove such fear, and in its place sub- 
stitute annihilation (or the death of the soul with the body), in its place, 
and offer such proofs as were sufficient in his own case to remove such 



338 The Skeptic's Defense. 

fear, and to establish in the mind of this person, having this fear, the 
far more comfortable and desirable result, and the same proof that 
causes this latter result is also admissible to cause the former. It surely 
would cause the fond mother of a wayward and abandoned son, who 
had died without any hope of heaven, or a son who had lost a mother or 
father under the same conditions, to fail to meet them on the other side 
of the grave not»only, but to also witness their undying bodies, contain- 
ing the same polluted soul, unwashed in the blood of Christ, in the con- 
dition the rich man was described to be in in the parable of the rich 
man and Lazarus, enough anguish to materially diminish their imagin- 
ary happiness, if not entirely destroy it; and it, on the other hand, 
would intensify the misery of the lost friend to witness the happiness of 
the friend saved, and the only way that such a deplorable result could 
be avoided is to abolish both, and give nothing in exchange, which is 
far preferable, and when the Bible is abolished that teaches such abomin- 
able and unfounded doctrines, and the unmitigated set of rascals who 
assume to instruct the people, called priests, are made to seek other 
occupations more respectable than the calling they now follow, future 
generations will have neither this unfounded and worthless hope ot 
heaven, or this damnable fear of hell. These excessively sensitive 
Christian bigots, who are so confident that they alone of all the human 
race have the only form of religion that is of any value, and who are so 
easily disturbed when any one in their presence is bold enough to ques- 
tion any of their unfounded hopes, or suggest that any other belief than 
the one they have entertained, without the shadow of a reason why they 
have or do entertain it, except that they have been so instructed, are the 
most outrageously determined to force their unfounded, worthless 
belief upon the whole human race, unasked and unwished for, and are 
not satisfied to merely organize churches and build splendid edifices in 
which to worship and adore this imaginary divinity, at a vast expense, 
which they force the people over whom they rule to give the 
money, but they also force them to maintain in luxury a vast army of 
useless ministers to propagate a mere humbug and delusion, at another 
vast outlay, which they cannot afford to do, but they also invade and 
seek to overthrow, and to, if possible, destroy every other people's relig- 
ion, and would take away and demolish all the pious hopes and beliefs, 
that are as sacred and valuable to these people from whom the Christian 
missionary would take such hope and belief, and give nothing in its 
stead any more consistent or any better than he always had, but on the 
other hand he would fill him with such an unfounded fear of the tor- 
ments of an imaginary hell, as the alternative, if he should be obstinate 
enough to reject this offer of salvation, through a redeemer of which this 



The Unspeakable Outrage of Missions. 339 

missionary pretends to be the agent. All this is an outrage as great and 
greater than for a skeptic to produce a feeling of discomfort, by weaken- 
ing the Christian's hope of heaven. These people, among whom the 
Christian missionaries go uninvited, have their own sacred books, as pre- 
cious to them as the Christian's Bible is to him. They have their 
religious teachers, equivalent to the Christian's priests; they have their 
sacred edifices or temples, more beautiful and costly than any the 
Christian can produce, and they are as well satisfied with their future 
prospects as is any Christian with his, and it is an outrage of unspeak- 
able meanness to send a lot of flat skulled missionaries among them 
to take from them the satisfactory hope they have, not only, but also rob 
them of all they can possibly extort in money, and in return give noth- 
ing, but, in addition to their high-handed robbery, create social discord 
and contention that such religious disputes always cause, and all this is 
justified in a pretended solicitude for the good of the souls of those 
who, if they have any souls at all, are as capable pf deciding its destiny 
beyond this life as are those who volunteer to instruct them. This 
whole missionary outrageous scheme is only a financial one, and origin- 
ated in an unfounded assumption, based on a spurious passage in the 
new testament, and found in the last chapter of the gospel of Mark, from 
the ninth verse to the end of the chapter, which has been added by the 
impostors who invented this missionary scheme, and is not found in 
any manuscript copies, but is printed in brackets in the late new version 
revised at Oxford. This manufactured scripture also contains all the 
authority the Baptist sect can show for their humbug of adult baptism 
by immersion, and this is also omitted in another place where it was in 
the old version. " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature," and "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,but he that 
believeth not shall be damned." The lamentable want of success,to secure 
the necessary number of recruits to make good the losses occasioned 
by death and apostacy, from that portion of the church that required a 
man to be born again, or those who had arrived at mature age, caused 
the managers to change the plan of the Sunday-school, which, when it 
was first invented, was designed merely to instruct children of the poor, 
who were employed in factories during the week, and consequently had 
no chance to learn to read or write, to give such an opportunity to learn 
merely secular knowledge, and the secular instruction was abolished 
and religious instruction was substituted. The undeveloped and impres- 
sible mental structure of children causes them to receive without hesita- 
tion or doubt what the teacher is capable to impart, and the teacher 
adapts the instruction to the capacity of the child, reference being had to 
the age and endowments of the pupil, grades established and teachers 



340 The* Skeptic's Defense. 

selected by a competent superintendent, who furnishes such teachers 
with selected topics, and sees that the teachers are diligent, punctual in 
attendance, faithful to instruct, and when the young man or young 
woman emerges or graduates from such a discipline one step only is 
requisite to qualify him or her for membership, and that is a sham con- 
version or regeneration, and a few crocodile tears, and they are admitted 
to fill vacant places, and keep the number from diminishing, and up to 
this time this victim has never been permitted to exercise any faculty 
but credulity, and are no better than the average of those among whom 
they live, who have never used any of these advantages. This ingenious 
scheme is made all the more successful by the introduction of music, to 
give emotional expression to a class of hymns, adapted by the author 
of these hymns to embody in their structure all the ground work of the 
various orthodox creeds, and many of the peculiar doctrines of each 
separate sect, so as to secure their sale among all' shades of Christians 
except Catholics, which are not admitted by the orthodox to be entitled 
to that name, but are only mere pagans. All this is the result of fore- 
sight and experience, and in recent years there is the. addition of a class 
of specialists made to the former merely pastoral' work, under the title 
of evangelists, who secure by a sort of gift which they have gradually 
acquired, by practice upon some special theme, which qualifies them for 
employment to cause the hesitating penitent to come to a decision and 
unite with the church. No one has any right to find fault with the fore- 
going process, if it was an honest endeavor on the part of the managers 
and leaders to save the souls of their fellow men; but when it is only 
done as a device to create a supply from which to extort funds to keep 
alive an organization that ought to never have had any life, and con- 
tinue a rotten system of fraud and deception, and well known to be sucti 
by the hypocritical founders of these various false systems, then the 
skeptic is in duty bound, as far as in his power, to netralize these under- 
handed t proceedings, and prevent the young and unsuspecting from 
becoming the dupes of such a rascally system. The Catholic priests are 
sagacious enough to prohibit the reading of the Bible by the common 
people, or, if not actually prohibited, make it so difficult as to be prac- 
tically impossible, and for a very obvious reason: to prevent them from 
reading such impossible statements that defy belief, and would be 
almost sure to cause many of them to be skeptical, and that result is 
always important to prevent. 

If any person of ordinary common sense were to read such a story 
as is recorded in the book of Jonah, or in fact all the book of Jonah (for 
the story concerning the whale is no more absurd than all the rest of it), 
they would be obliged, without the least hesitation to pronounce it not 



Such Stories Disgrace the Bible. 341 

only a lie, but a stupidly foolish one, for it violates all the natural laws 
relating to respiration, mastication, digestion and assimilation, that it is 
surprising that the writer of such trash could so far presume on cred- 
ulity and ignorance enough to believe any portion of it, much less rely 
upon its precise literal accuracy as being divinely inspired, and cause it 
to be transmitted to our times and used as a revelation from God, and 
not only so, but that Christ, the son of God, who ought to have certainly 
known that it was a lie, should be made to say byf the evangelist who 
wrote his life, that " as Jonah was three days and three nights in the 
whale's belly so must the.son of man be three days and three nights in the 
bowels of the earth," when in fact, according to the same writer, he was 
only one day and two nights in that condition. There is another sim- 
ilar impossible lie in the book of Daniel ; in fact, like the book of Jonah, 
it is all a lie, and needs no refutation, and would be an insult to the 
intelligence of a savage to expect him to listen for a moment to such a 
collection of miserable twaddle. Many more such impossible stories are 
related in the old testament scriptures, and the new testament is almost 
wholly composed of just such stories, that not only lack probability but 
possibility; for example, the parable or graphic story of the rich Dives 
in hell, and the poor Lazarus in heaven, in sight and hearing, carrying 
on a conversation and argument, the organs of sight, hearing,speech and 
intellect in perfect working order, but the instinct of sympathy or sor- 
row in the happy person was extinct, so that no pity was felt, and no dis- 
position to mitigate the confessedly undeserved punishment which this 
rich man was made to suffer, for it is nowhere asserted of him, or even 
so much as hinted, that any injustice or any kind of crime was found 
or given as a reason why he should not be in heaven, as well as for his 
opposite, the poor man. Is it any wonder that any reasonable being, 
having intelligence enough to understand the most simple subject, 
should reject such nonsense? No! the wonder is that it is not univer- 
sally rejected, as it deserves to be, and as it soon will be; but it must be 
conceded and admitted that there has been erected on this wonderfully 
foolish and absurd book, the Bible, one of the strongest forms of 
religious impositions the world can produce, and has caused more woe 
and misery to the human race who have come under its influence than 
all other causes combined, and is yet destined, before it can be 
destroyed by the progress of intelligence and the further revelations of 
science, to perpetuate for a long time to come more of its pernicious 
fruits. 

There is constantly a large number of unemployed ministers, who 
are so weak in their endowments that no church will employ them, and 
there is always a large number of newly organized mission churches, 



342 The Skeptic's Defense. 

who are too poor to pay for talent, and these weak ministers go to an 
agency or bureau, or, as it would be more proper to call it, an employ- 
ment office, and are sent on trial to these weak churches, and a sum of 
one or two hundred dollars donated to enable such weak, poor church 
to employ them, and keep them and their families from starvation. 
The belief in a personal God, and his opponent, a personal devil, which 
the priesthood of every form of religious belief have invented, is the one 
huge superstition and the great central lie of the world, the parent of all 
the religious superstitions of mankind, in all countries and all ages, 
around which all the darkening beliefs of mankind have clustered, and 
upon which they have depended for their life. This personal creator, 
they assert, and by weak arguments attempt to prove, created a vast 
universe of matter out of nothing, or in other words he is the great 
weaver who has done all this weaving of the vast creation in the looms 
of nature. One, and perhaps the main argument they depend upon to 
prove this position, is the concurrent testimony of the world, or the 
unity among mankind, as regards a belief in a God and the immortality 
of man, erroneously supposing that a uniformity of belief of many 
millions of simpletons would have the slightest effect in making true 
that which in and of itself is not true. Another of these false arguments 
is, there is thought in the universal human race not their own, and the 
inference, they say, is, there can be no thought without a thinker, and 
that thinker is a person; some one also made righteousness; all nature 
if full of the evidences of thought and righteousness, and therefore that 
thinker is God. While it may be admitted that thought or design per- 
tains to the universe, still no thought can exist save in the matter and 
forces of which the universe is composed, and these forces must be suit- 
ably organized in animal bodies, including the digestive, the circula- 
tory, the brain, and the whole nervous apparatus, before any thinking is 
possible. Why not as, well say that all nature is bursting or full of the 
evidences of eyesight, and that where there is seeing there must be a 
seer, and that seer is God. It is just as reasonable to believe in and 
talk about a grand central eyesight, a grand gushing fountain of hear- 
ing, or tasting, or feelings, as of a grand bursting thought, and also 
name these God. These fanatical priests are determined not to see, or, 
if they see, not to admit, that all these processes of nature simply are 
more or less developed in every form of animal life. The brain no 
more proves the existence of a personal God or deity than does the eye, 
the ear, the limbs, or any part of the animal structure. In the grand 
economy of nature all these natural phenomena take place unavoidably, 
in obedience to its laws, consequently they contain no argument what- 
ever by which to prove the existence of any God, or even the necessity 



Nature's Operations Independent of God. 3-13 

of such an existence, and therefore the atheist is not a fool, as these 
shallow reasoners would like to have their dupes believe, for he asserts 
that these priests are knaves as well as fools; for the paltry proceeds 
which they receive they are willing to perpetuate, and if need be, invent, 
any absurdity, and call it divine revelation, and the foolish dupes are 
not able to resist these monstrous priestly impositions. These shallow 
reasoners proclaim and insist that the process of weaving, by which 
they mean the creative energy necessary to produce, that a weaver or 
creator is necessary to stand back of all the processes of nature, and per- 
sonally direct every process that takes place. What a foolishly weak 
argument! If a weaver was powerful enough to create from nothing 
such a universe as is in existence, why did he not make it so grand and 
perfect that all its operations would be performed without his presence 
being necessary, to throw the shuttle in every instance ; for if it is neces- 
sary in a single instance, it is in every instance. A thousand times "No." 
Nature unassisted is perfectly able to perform every act that transpires, 
without the aid of any superintendent, or weaver, or God. With nature 
all things are equally simple. It is no more for nature to evolve from a 
nebulous mist a world or planet, and set it in motion in exact harmony 
with other previously existing worlds, around its common centre, in its 
prescribed orbit or path, than it is to cause water to run down hill, or 
to assume a level position if obstacles prevent its dispersion, or the sun 
to produce light by its currents or rays striking the atmosphere that 
envelopes all worlds, and by that means weaving vegetable, animal and 
mineral cells, thus throwing the weaving shuttle in all cases. Nature 
is equal to every emergency. All her operations are in obedience to her 
unalterable laws, and everything is forced to take place precisely as it 
does, because under all the circumstances it cannot be otherwise than 
as it is. There is no chance or happen in the matter. Every effect 
requires a cause, and every cause must produce its only results, only 
when the conditions are favorable. These causes and effects are strictly 
natural ; there are none others. Such a thing as a supernatural cause or 
a suoernatural effect never existed and never can. Matter and force are 
always present, and there is not a possibility that can arise where law 
and causes are not present to govern results. Millions of men, in 
every country, in every stage of human progress, have imagined them, 
I nit no man has ever been or ever will be able to point out a supernatural 
cause or a supernatural effect, and if by any process of reasoning it can 
be shown that there is a being capable of creating such a grand and 
glorious machine, or vehicle, as nature, producing all matter and force 
from nothing, and he is unable to set it in motion, so it will run itself, 
and perforin all there is for it to do without his standing by to turn the 



34-i The Skeptic's Defense. 

crank, or to throw the shuttle, as the weaver does, he stands confessed 
and convicted of inability on his part to make a perfect machine, for a 
machine that cannot run indefinitely, without the maker standing by, 
either to turn the crank, to tighten the screws, to push when hard work 
is to be performed, and to keep it at all times from goings to smash, is 
not a perfect mechanic or machine builder. He cannot be a being of 
infinite power and knowledge, or he could make a machine that would 
run itself eternally, The real and only fact is, nature comprises or 
includes all matter, all force, all motion, all power, all intelligence, all 
possibilities. She is eternally independent of all superintendents, design- 
ers, directors, governors, conductors, managers, or crank turners, and 
there is no more wicked or malicious falsehood and blasphemy than to 
deny nature her grandeur and power, and give it to an imaginary non- 
entity by the name/ of God, and thus make him a little, contemptible, 
one-horse crank turner, to keep this machinery in motion. The occupa- 
tion of the theologian would be gone, and they are shrewd enough to see 
that result, the moment they admit that a personal God is not previous 
and above nature, and is constantly necessary to instruct and superin- 
tend all her work, for all this absurd business of God making, inventing 
weavers or shuttle throwers, to aid nature, and attend to all the events 
which transpire in the universe, is what is called theology, or science oi 
God, the most false and utterly contemptible employment which ignor- 
ant man, either in his primitive condition, or since he became further 
advanced, has ever engaged in, and it is nothing but the most monstrous 
blasphemy for any theologian to thus endeavor to despoil eternal nature 
of her grandeur and glory, and set up some little, puny, feeble, fickle, 
fractious, changeable, passionate, angry God, to show her how to per- 
form her constant work. It is a narrow and contemptible pitiful mind, 
that is not only unable, but is also unwilling, to grasp the great truth 
that nature was never invented, never devised, never formulated, never 
started, never brought into existence from nothing. Like time and 
space, which can only be compared to an eternal circle, it never began 
and never can end. Why cannot the theist , who so easily accords eter- 
nal existence to a deity which no mortal has ever seen, or ever will see, 
or even had any proofs for, generously yield to nature, of which there 
are millions of proof, the same eternal existence? Simply and only for 
the reason that such an admission must inevitably destroy the theology 
of every species of false religion, and consign the priests of all grades 
to that dense obscurity from which they should never have been per- 
mitted to emerge. 

While it may be granted that nature is in a measure mysterious, it 
is no less a mystery to say the universe was made, for how about its 



A Christian Hypocrite is Worse Than Any Other. 345 

maker? Whence came he? If the universe must needs have a designer 
or creator, does not this designer and creator, possessing qualities 
superior to what he produced, also require a designer or creator? The 
great truth is, this imaginary creator is a monstrous creator of man, and 
is nothing but imaginary, and can never be made real. 

The highest grade of Christian hypocrite is worse than any other, 
and no nation that adopts the Christian name is on that account alone 
any further advanced than the pagan nation, as all superiority claimed 
for their system by Christians is due to those in their midst who reject all 
religion, and rely on morality for a guide to conduct, and the reason 
for such a result is obvious; it is because the Christian, in order to be 
one, must renounce all use of his reasoning faculty, and receive without 
hesitation or examination the most preposterous and outrageous 
absurdities, which any or every unscrupulous impostor may introduce, 
advocate and enforce, and make an impossible hereafter his chief object 
of inquiry and solicitude, and neglect to cultivate the intellect in any 
other direction, and have consequently but one idea, and that the most 
v/orthless and foolish one he can have so that all progress has to be 
made by the enemies of all religions, who are hampered and opposed by 
these holy fanatics in any and every effort to assist the race to reach a 
higher grade of civilization. The twelve disciples, who simply formed 
a body guard to the leading impostor of that time, granting for the 
sake of argument that Jesus Christ did really live on earth, were never 
instructed beyond their already formed Jewish prejudices, and instruc- 
tions relating to the keeping the ceremonial laws of Moses, under which 
they had all grown to manhood-, and no impression was ever made dur- 
ing the three years they roamed about the country, only occasionally 
being present in the Jewish synagogue or place of worship when their 
leader was permitted to speak, and see him heal the sick, and perform 
what is termed miracles, and as nothing in the teachings of Christ was 
in conformity with the Jewish teaching, only an explanation in some 
unimportant respects different from that given by other rabbis, no 
organization was even suggested and no converts were made, for there 
is nothing different morally with the system then in use and ceremoni- 
ally no change was even proposed; indeed, they all became so odious to 
the people that extermination was the only remedy by which the nest 
could be destroyed, and that extreme measure was decided upon, when 
toleration had only increased the evil, and in a bungling, ludicrous way, 
as given in the four gospels, was carried out, as those concerned in the 
plot expected, never supposing the dead could revive without external 
aid and continue the work in a more fierce and aggressive manner. 
That extreme humbug of humbugs and rascally imposition styled the 



348 The Skeptic's Defense. 

resurrection of the body, which is the main corner stone on which this 
whole edifice of fraud and deception rests, named by its authors the 
Christian church, is the most stupid of all the deceptions, in the sly wa> 
it was done, for, before Christ was ascertained by a spear thrust, to be 
really dead, there was a general resurrection of the dead in one cemetery 
near the spot where this crucifixion took place, on Calvary, when an 
earthquake had broken the rocks over the graves, thus releasing all the 
dead bodies, and they were sufficiently strong and active to walk back to 
their former homes and friends, presumably naked, as their clothing 
was all destroyed by decomposition, and were recognized by their for- 
mer friends, and there this lie ends. Whether their souls ever came 
back, or whether they lived a long or short life after this, inspiration did 
not think proper to inform these holy writers, who wrote and invented 
this absurd story about two hundred years after it occurred. So, 
although the dead body of Christ was put into a vault cut out of the 
solid rock, and the small opening was securely closed by a stone so large 
that it could not be moved, without some strong mechanical device, 
such as a derrick, another earthquake had to be called upon to make 
a passage out of this vault possible, and an angel to sit on the stone, 
and so terrified the soldiers that were stationed there to see that no one 
stole this body, that they never dared to speak of the way the body was 
abstracted, for withholding which information they received a suitable 
bribe, and thus were prevented from exposing the diabolical fraud of 
Christ's resurrection to be discovered. The accounts of this transac- 
tion are so contradictory that nothing certain is known how this risen, 
crucified body was first discovered and. identified, for the twelve were as 
much surprised, and as reluctant to admit that this stranger who walked 
and talked with them was actually their former chief, as were any others 
who casually met and conversed with this stranger, and they had by this 
time become scattered, and returned home to their families and friends, 
whom they had deserted for three years, and resumed their former occu- 
pations. Judas, the smartest of the lot, had committed suicide from 
remorse; the rest had all renounced their allegiance to this crucified 
impostor, and the whole scheme seemed in a fair way to collapse igno- 
miniously; but when the resurrection was discovered by some obscure 
women, one at least of whom was of doubtful reputation, as she had 
parted with only seven of her devils, but had some left, who came to * 
visit the grave, as an act of devotion to visit the tomb of a friend, they 
were informed by the angel who was sitting on the stone that the body 
of Christ was not within, but had revived and gone to Galilee, they 
spread this information among these absconding disciples, who placed 
enough reliance upon their statements to proceed there, to see for them- 



The Lord's Supper Not Authorized. 347 

selves whether the report by these women was true. The accounts of 
this event are so conflicting, that it seems a pity, for the sake of being 
able to get some information in some degree probable, that all but one 
of these accounts should be surpressed, instead of so clouding and 
obscuring the whole subject that no reliable information can be had, 
for there is no other source but this that even admits any of these stories 
to have any foundation in fact; but, however they disagree in other 
matter, they all agree that after various interviews which they describe, 
he sailed away into space, and was seen no more, as men do who go up 
in a balloon. 

Let us now examine the biggest humbug of the whole, I mean the 
sacrament of the Lord's supper, which occupies a place in the church 
seccnd to no other. It is made a saving ordinance in the Roman Cath- 
olic church, and is never celebrated only immediately after confession 
and absolution, and in extreme cases just previous to death, when a 
priest can be had to officiate. In the various subdivisions of the; ortho- 
dox Christians, no oral confession at stated times is required, but an 
assent to the creeds of the sect the applicant proposes to join, after such 
creed is rehearsed in the hearing of the applicant. This whole ceremony 
is a pure invention,wholly unauthorized by any scripture, and wholly use- 
less for any purpose, except to impress upon the spectators the false belief 
that Christ instituted this ceremony, to be a perpetual remindef of the 
great sacrifice Christ made,in submitting to all this ignominy and suffer- 
ing, to make atonement for the sin of Adam,and provide a way by which 
those, who, by complying with certain prescribed terms, and becoming 
thereby qualified to observe this rite, which is falsely assumed to make 
its participants better prepared for the contest with evil, and place them 
in a better condition with reference to a home in heaven, in comparison 
with those who do not. There is not the slightest excuse for the insti- 
tution of this foolish sacrament, from any authority to be found in the 
new testament, for all the authority there claimed to be, by its most 
zealous advocates, is the last supper or social meal, without any pretence 
that this last time the passover, which was an annual Jewish feast, and 
always celebrated by all good Jews, had any significance beyond the 
impression that he was about to be arrested, tried, convicted, and execu- 
ted, before another return of this feast. This feast of the passover was 
instituted to commemorate the escape of the first born or oldest children 
of the Israelites, when the first born or oldest children of the Egyptians 
were to be slain by an angel in the night, and lest he might, through 
mistake, kill the wrong person, a large spot of blood on each side and 
over the top of the door was a mark or sign that Israelites lived here, 
and therefore he must pass along or over that house, without killing any 



348 The Skeptic's Defense. 

of its inmates. This night was ever after celebrated by all Jews as 
religiously and as truly as the Christians celebrate annually the birth of 
Christ, or Christmas, and the Jews still celebrate the passover, and will 
continue to do so as long as there is a Jew on earth, and Christ simply 
said to them they must or might, if they chose, wherever they were on 
the anniversary, eating the passover, remember him, their old leader 
and companion, and call to mind the words he then spoke to them as his 
last words, and therefore in some sense and in some degree they might 
seem to them solemn or sacred ; but there was not the remotest idea ever 
entered the mind of Christ that any mortal, besides these who were 
present, need ever know that he told them that the piece of unleavened 
bread, which was like or identical with what we call crackers, was his 
body, for he knew, and they knew, and we know, it was not; and the 
wine he dealt out to them, we all know, as they all did, was not his 
blood ; and what was the use of making such a senseless assertion, even 
after he had given thanks for these materials to enable them to eat this 
supper; and the owner of the room was better paid by these thanks than 
he expected to be when he furnished these thirteen the room and the , 
provisions required for the supper. On this unproved and improbable 
story rests the whole of that stupendous fraud and deception called the 
sacrament of the Lord's supper. The sacrament of baptism rests on a 
still more flimsy and unsubstantial basis, a mere imitation; because 
Christ was baptized by John, therefore all must who profess belief in 
Christ, be baptized, including all infants whose parents, one or both, 
profess to be Christians. On the same principles, why not submit to 
crucifixion, because Christ was crucified as an example, as Christ himself 
never authorized either the sacrament of baptism or the Lord's supper, 
and it is nowhere any more than distantly alluded to in any of the 
epistles ; they are simply only a late invention, and differently observed 
by the different sects, and it is reasonable to conclude they are of no 
use whatever, and ought to be abolished, for in the Roman Catholic 
church no bread is used, and the priest never eats the consecrated wafer 
and drinks all the wine, whereas in the celebration of the passover Christ 
himself neither ate nor drank any portion of what was provided,but gave 
the whole to the twelve, and refused to taste of either bread or wine. 

Another wretched fraud that has lately been invented, and for which 
its advocates pretend to derive what little: authority there is, in the first 
twenty-one verses of the gospel of John, the third chapter, is the doc- 
trine of regeneration, or the new birth. The bold statement made in 
the third verse is in these words, " Except a man be born again he can- 
not see the kingdom of God," or in other words, never can be admitted 
into heaven. That sweeping statement would deprive heaven, if any 



i he Atonement Theory Explained. 349 

Stich place' was ever constructed or located, of all its inhabitants, for no 
mortal ever existed who did not die in the same moral condition that he 
inherited at his physical birth, and developed into at maturity, and this 
emotional excitement which is named new birth is only the result of an 
appeal to fear, so as to cause a temporary suspension of the exercise out- 
wardly of some appetite or passion, causing an apparent change of con- 
duct, when no inward change was experienced that was not before pres- 
ent, notwithstanding all the hypocritical profession of a few cranks, 
called ministers, who are too self righteous to wish the companionship 
of any but a select few, who, like themselves, have outwardly, from some 
selfish and mercenary reason, united together in some form of religious 
organization, whose chief benefit is to be realized in social and other 
intercourse with those persons who, like themselves, have subscribed to 
the same creed. Inasmuch as all sects of Christians acknowledge the 
necessity and importance of the new birth, as an antecedent to salvation, 
through the atonement for sin through the mediator Christ, it is neces- 
sary to define the term, and describe the manner by which this indis- 
pensable result is reached. The theory is as follows: The fall of the 
first parents of the race from a state of purity and innocence, which was 
foreseen, and which could not be prevented, introduced sin and misery 
into the world, which previous to that event, or fall, or disobedience, 
whatever you please to call it, had no existence. The disobedience of 
these first human beings so alienated the regard and benevolent inten- 
tions of the creator, that he pronounced a curse, not cnly upon the whole 
animate creation, but also upon the inanimate, or the earth and its 
products, and this curse, pronounced at the beginning of human history, 
has descended through all the subsequent generations, without any 
mitigation, till the advent of Christ, some four thousand years later, and 
was not removable or repealed till after his death and resurrection, and 
then the atonement was complete, and salvation or regeneration was 
possible to all those then and since living, that the individual who wished 
to avail himself of this mode of reconciliation, by complying to certain 
stated conditions, the promise was made that the future life was inevit- 
ably to be all that could be desired or imagined by such person, but no 
mitigation of the curse upon inanimate nature was either promised or 
ever will be realized. Every individual, according to this one-sided 
scheme, who lived before Christ died and rose again, for atonement was 
not completed till after the victim went back to his former position in 
heaven, as well as all those from whom the knowledge that any Christ 
has ever lived has been withheld, and those who reject or are indifferent 
to the terms of salvation, after being made acquainted with such terms, 
are consigned to eternal perdition or damnation, not only, but fearful 



360 The Skeptic's Defense. 

torment, as the scripture names it, when it makes Christ say to a set of 
his own nation : " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers," or an extremely 
venomous reptile, " how can ye escape the damnation of hell." The 
preceding is a candid and fair statement of one side of this doctrine of 
the atonement, in as few words as the case will admit; much more of 
the details would only serve to obscure the subject. Now, the remedy 
proposed is the new birth, or regeneration, which is differently man- 
aged by different ecclesiastical divisions into which the church as a 
whole is divided. The birth of every child whose parents are Catholics 
secures regeneration in the following complicated way: Baptism by 
the priest, in as short a time after birth as circumstances will permit, 
secures to such child admission to the intermediate state, or purgatory, 
if death ends the life just begun, before confirmation is reached, which 
time is dependent on various conditions, but always before maturity is 
reached, when the eucharist or communion is celebrated for the 
first time, when regeneration is complete. No perceptible change of 
character is ever expected, or required, nothing but the ability to cor- 
rectly answer certain prescribed questions, to which answers have Deen 
attached in the same book in which the questions are found, and all 
depend on memory, and nothing on the import of either questions or 
answers. This secures confirmation. After that oral confession, and 
absolution, or forgiveness, by a priest called a confessor, w T ho has been 
confirmed or licensed by the bishop, who has been authorized to admin- 
ister this license by the archbishop, who has been made such by a car- 
dinal, who in turn was made cardinal by the pope, who was the suc- 
cessor of other popes, who was the successor of St. Peter, who was the 
vicar and successor of Christ, who was the second Adam, who was the 
son of God; and when forgiveness is reached through this round-about 
process it is genuine, and no other is, if the Catholic is to be the judge, 
being born of water at baptism and of the spirit at confirmation, the 
spirit being so diluted, by being transmitted through the various grades 
of holy men, that no benefit is ever perceived, and the recipient remains a 
mere man, just like his associates who never had this process. The Epis- 
copal and Lutheran churches conduct the process of regeneration some- 
what different, but no more consistent, but the intelligence of these two 
organizations is of a much higher grade, and so their life is in some degree 
more consistent with their profession. But all other orthodox churches 
deny the gradual manner of the new birth, as held by the foregoing, and 
insist that the change is* instantaneous, as much so as to turn the body 
and walk in an opposite direction, so the whole mental organization is 
reversed; but this is the culmination of a previous earnest struggle of 
greater or less duration, and when this struggle has been begun, under 



The Value of Music as An Accessory. 351 

or by reason of the exciting influence of some skillful evangelist, who 
has become so very expert in imparting to a collection of stupid dunces, 
who have been prevailed upon to come within his magnetic influence, 
he is able to impart to them, and in consequence of which power or fac- 
ulty he has become in so good demand that his services can only be 
secured at a p'rice in proportionate ratio to the suckers he can rake in, 
and the money they can thereby secure, it usually terminates in causing 
the unconditional surrender of the victim to the outrageous imposition 
of the evangelist, and conclude to undertake the warfare of the Christian 
life, under the false impression that he has been regenerated, or born 
again, and therefore must be included, by the consecration of baptism, 
a worthy subject to receive the next imposition, the Lord's supper, when 
the whole rigmarole of regeneration is completed, and he then receives 
a full pass to heaven, and is ready to submit uncomplainingly to the 
process of severe and constant bleeding, to and beyond the full extent of 
his ability, to respond to the many urgent appeals for financial aid. This 
is orthodox regeneration. 

One of the most powerful, if not absolutely the most powerful, 
accompaniment of the spurious form of religion under which we live, 
and which is called improperly Christianity, is the discovery and the 
application of the art of music, which, after many stages of development, 
has finally developed into an exact science, and in connection with 
another art, hymnology, has been in the past and now is one of the 
most essential aids of the priesthood, to propagate spurious and false 
doctrines, that has ever been invented. Some religious crank, falsely 
called a poet, is selected to arrange the various phases of doctrine which 
are held to be fundamental, or of first importance, by such sectarian 
leaders, and then invent metrical hymns, so as to) make rhyme, of dif- 
ferent measure, or as it is called, metre, and of sufficient variety to meet 
all emergencies, and that collection is revised and all objectionable mat- 
ter is eliminated, and the book published and placed in the hands of 
those who are employed to sing the praises of God in the sanctuary, and 
in the pews or seats of the members. Another set of humbugs, falsely 
called musicians, are then required to -produce metrical melodies and 
harmonies, which they extract from some previously invented musical 
composition, to endeavor to please God, and at the same time edify 
each other. This scheme is very cunningly devised, and reaches its ulti- 
mate requirement by exciting the emotional natures of some of the 
listeners, who imbibe along with the melodies the doctrines included in 
the words of the hymns, which are given out by the preacher, to as far 
as possible fortify and strengthen his weak arguments and entreaties. 
Chants, masses and anthems are also ased by the Episcopal and Cath- 



3o$ The Skeptic's DEFENbt-. 

olics, who never use hymns, for regeneration is brought about in a more 
simple way, by merely baptizing the infant before sin, to remove the 
original inherited sin. 

There still remains to consider the fictitious emotion called love, in 
connection with religious experience. The emotion of love, in the 
human animal is, when extended beyond paternal and filial love, a mere 
imaginary feeling, and when it reaches its strongest manifestation 
never goes beyond preference, and hate never goes beyond aversion, and 
there is no intensity in either, but merely indifference or choice; but 
these religious fanatics have incorporated love into their system, with 
the same intensity that all writers of fiction employ, when they go so far 
beyond reality that the experienced reader is disgusted with the excess, 
and this same overdrawn picture of the love of God is carried by the 
same vivid imagination to the same excess. 

The summing up, therefore, of this whole matter, amounts to just 
this: When we hear of the various religious sects, through the hypo- 
critical and fanatical leaders of such sects, boasting of their success in 
securing numbers to their particular organization, we must remembei 
that such leaders can and do overstate their membership as to them 
seems expedient, and they cannot be detected in such fraud, for no 
outsider has any facility given him whereby to ascertain whether such 
numbers are correctly given, or are largely overdrawn, and when the 
temptation to overstate the aggregate is so strong, in order to encourage 
further efforts to keep these worthless organizations from sinking out 
of sight, the fair inference is that such overstatement is always made. 
The Roman and Greek Catholics include as Christians both Catholic 
parents and all children b.orn of parents, whether both parents, or only 
one, and that one the mother, is Catholic, and no limit can be put on the 
number returned in any census, and the ambition of the Christian hypo- 
crite to make it appear that his system is flourishing and prosperous 
beyond any of his rivals, makes it certain that the true number is never 
given, but largely overstated in every instance, and the like reasons 
operate on all the various sects, and there is not the slightest probability 
that the aggregate Christian population of the world is one-half as large 
as is given by their representations, for the Christian boast and con- 
fident prophecy has always been that the whole population of the world 
will eventually be Christians, so the inducement to overestimate their 
numbers, and underestimate that of .the pagan world, so as to show a 
perceptible gain, is too strong to make it probable that any reliance can 
be put on it. Another baseless and false assumption is put forth by 
these self-righteous hypocrites, that were it not that Christ had, lived and 
died on the cross, in precisely the way he did, none of the precepts that 



Christianity on Business Principles. 863 

are included in the most upright moral conduct, which is occasionally to 
be seen in some individuals who do not so much as profess to ever have 
even heard of any Christ, and have no sympathy with any form of 
religion, when the truth is that anyone who practices those moral pre- 
cepts, that are, so to speak, innate or natural to all highly developed 
human beings, without reference to any form of religion, either Christ- 
ian, Jewish, Mahometan, or pagan, or any other, is acting entirely inde- 
pendent of Christ, or any other impostor or reformer; and as many 
such can be found under one form of religion or civilization as another, 
and even infidels or skeptics are as highly endowed mentally and mor- 
ally, and are able to show as many in proportion that are models of 
purity and virtue, sobriety and benevolence, as are any of the others, 
without having among their number any that are accused of the most 
scandalous and gross vices, that often are revealed to belong to some 
noted divine, like H.Ward Beecher and many others like him. In fact, the 
cloak of religion covers the most moral corruption and depravity of 
any cloak, and averts suspicion, and facilitates escape to the extent that 
nearly all the religious villains are able to escape detection and convic- 
tion, when escape from the jurisdiction is impossible. Very few that 
pretend to be Christians are such, except in name or by profession, and 
ought not to be included in the number included in the estimate as such. 
The Christian church organization, like every other, lias to do its man- 
agement on business principles, and when any considerable deficiency 
is caused in numbers by death or desertion, some means must be 
resorted to, in order to keep the number from diminishing not only, but 
the revenues must be increased, so as to prevent a collapse financially, 
and methods that formerly were found sufficient for this purpose, when, 
by getting revivals started and a high excitement of religious fervor 
among the older members this fervor in some cases would extend and 
by continuing the excitement a long time a few converts were secured 
but this process has had its day and has been abandoned. After that 
came the evangelist movement which was for a time used for all it was 
worth but is was found too costly for these holy experts were so few and 
the demand for their services was so great that they like all other special- 
ists must have large fees and the risk of success had to be taken by those 
who employed them and this experiment was too costly and is now 
abandoned and a new device or invention has come to the front and is 
managed without cost and in the ten years' experiment it has spread so 
as to encourage its founders to extend it as an auxiliary or supplement 
to the Sunday-school which is primary or the beginning of the process 
of regeneration. This device is named the Christian Endeavor Society 
and was first invented at Portland, Maine, by an obscure minister by the 



854 The Skeptic's Defense. 

name of Frances E. Clark, D. D., which some one who was at a loss to 
know what D. D. meant called it double devil, and like all other new 
inventions has been improved upon and enlarged and brought its 
inventor into conspicuous notice from obscurity and he has become the 
President of a national society which sent 15,000 delegates from 16,000 
societies to attend the tenth annual convention at Minneapolis in July, 
1 89 1. The history of this movement has revealed so much encourag- 
ing progress towards strengthening and continuing a hopeless and sink- 
ing cause that its promoters and beneficiaries the priests who hope 
thereby to increase the nearly dried up source from whence they derive 
their chief revenue are now very enthusiastic and energetic in encourag- 
ing this last movement which if it like all the rest fails their last hope is 
gone also. This invention is very simple and yet in its details quite com- 
plicated beginning with little children and including all up to adult age 
in menibership, who are all obliged to sign and keep this pledge: " Trust- 
ing in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise him to do whatever 
he would like to have me do. That I will make it the rule of life to 
pray and to read the Bible every day. That I will support my own 
church in every way, especially by attending all her Sunday and mid- 
week services, unless prevented by some reason which I dare give to my 
Saviour, and that just so far as I know how throughout my whole life I 
will endeavor to lead a Christian life." Anybody who subscribes to this 
pledge, and in addition agrees to take some part other than singing 
becomes a member whether man, woman or child, and there is much 
more detail pertaining which secure a renewal of the pledges and prevent 
those who are inclined to lapse from doing so. This will be tried awhile 
like any other new movement and like the rest prove worthless, but 
while it lasts will attract the young and perpetuate awhile longer the rule 
of superstition and deception and may be secure a few paying members, 
but the great majority in numbers will lapse when they grow older. 

As a closing theme to this volume I wish to. say something about 
the " Eastern Question." I suppose very few of my readers have any 
but an extremely faint perception concerning that very important and 
far-reaching question. While it is true that much has been said in period- 
icals and papers about it, more especially in late years, it has not been 
definite and consecutive enough for the general or casual reader to 
gather much concerning it, to impress him of its supreme importance, 
but at the present time, the closing months of 1895, a revival of this 
question, in the slaughter by the Turks of the Armenians, has caused the 
thinking portion, at least, of the world to give earnest attention and 
forcible expression, through the papers and periodicals, to radical views 
concerning the duty of the Christian nations to interfere, and by force, 



An Explanation of the Eastern Question. 355 

if required, cause the Turks to not only cease from slaughtering their 
Christian subjects, but also to protect them from infuriated mobs of 
Mahometans. 

In past times, as remote as long previous to the crusades of the 
Christians of Europe, who, in seven different extensive expeditions, to 
recover from the Turks the sacred places in Palestine, which were unsuc- 
cessful after a prodigious cost of both treasure and blood, this question 
had its origin, and the intense animosity roused into activity at that 
time has never ceased to operate, but has been many times revived and 
intensified, till it has become so desperate that some final solution of it is 
expected to be now, as it has been many times before, near at hand. 
The magnitude of the question is such as to appall the most eminent 
and experienced'statesmen of every country in Europe, while this coun- 
try is not much interested, except in the way it is settled, or, in other 
words, is not a direct party to interfere, only as far as influence goes. 

The Christians in the Turkish Empire are not the variety included in 
any in this land. The Armenians are a branch by themselves of mere 
nominal Christians, like the Nestorians and some others who have come 
under the Turkish yoke by conquest, and hence expect extreme rigoi 
in return for the escape from extermination, which is the usual fate ol 
all Turkish subjects who refuse to embrace Islamism. This alternative 
was adopted by the Turks immediately after the expulsion of the Moors 
from Spain, at the behest of the inquisition, and if any modification of 
this practice is had, it is in return for some corresponding concession by 
those who are spared from extermination. A more extensive acquaint- 
ance of all the circumstances is required before any judgment of value 
is possible, but the general fact that no two rival religions, each desiring 
supremacy, and each claiming superiority, can exist in contact with 
each other, is as old! as history, and another fact that the strongest has 
both the right and ability to rule their own subjects in their own way, 
has always been admitted, and always must be, 'as long as the minority 
remain subjected; and the further fact that rebellion must be overcome 
by force in the most stern and vigorous' way, as well as the most speedy, 
has been the experience of all humanity in all time, and will continue 
to be, for on that depends the existence of every nation. This Eastern 
question is all a religious question as a basis, but incidental to that some 
others may be involved, hence a religious' war is the most violent and 
sanguinary of all wars, for fanaticism, stirred into activity by bigotry, is 
incapable of reason or restraint, and when ignorance is added to power, 
only absolute victory can end conflict; hence the statesmen who have on 
their hands this delicate but important question are, and ought to be, 
cautious and conciliating, for a religious war, once begun, can and very 



%6 The Skeptic's Defense 1 . 

likely will spread beyond the ability of any or perhaps every nation to 
control. Such is the influence of the priest of all religions over the 
ignorant masses that it is they who must be obeyed instead of the sov- 
ereign, and this is the principal danger to be encountered, for there is 
not now, and there never has been, any sovereign in Europe who has 
not been inferior to the priest in ability to control the passions of the 
masses of the people; for the king only controls the body, while the 
priest controls the mind that animates the body, causing it to act as he 
dictates. This is the power this writer is seeking to undermine and 
eventually to destroy, and abolish forever every form of religion, and 
thus secure harmony, and remove from mankind every ambition except 
to excel in every branch of knowledge, as it is disclosed in all the 
departments of science, and cause the streams of revenue, that have in all 
time flowed into the capacious pockets of the priests of all grades to be 
diverted into a more useful receptacle, the spread of intelligence, and 
create the ambition to become famous for learning and usefulness to a 
universal humanity. I have fully realized what an odium would attach 
to any name who dare to write as I have done, but I have reflected that 
although I may be snubbed by this generation, perhaps I would be 
applauded by the next, and although that would be no comfort to a dead 
man, it might be to some of his posterity. 

In the course of my writings I have said something about the mission- 
ary enterprise, as conducted by Christian people, but I want to put on 
record a few more thoughts before I close; I suppose the Chinese nation 
were more advanced in civilization, long before the period given in the 
Bible as the date of the origin of all created things, than any nation on 
earth now is, in some directions, and especially in their conception of the 
best moral and political systems to promote happiness and prosperity 
among men. A familiarity with Chinese history reveals the origin of 
moral codes that were in full vigor a thousand years before Egypt 
emerged from the savage state, or before the date of Noah's flood, and 
have never ceased to cultivate and practice, in their own country, such 
precepts as were found by experience best adapted to secure the present 
welfare of their people, and have never in all their history anticipated any 
future life, therefore they needed no religion that required a priesthood 
to instruct and distract the people about any God or devil, but that ras- 
cally system that originated in India and was called Brahmanism 
anciently, but is now known as Theosophy, could not be content without 
doing an outrage by sending their priests into China, to proselyte and 
disturb the quiet contentment of that people, unasked and undesired, 
but they never had but poor success, and their influence had entirely dis- 
appeared long before this, called the Christian era, begun; but 700 years 



Why Missionaries Cannot Live in China. 357 

previous they had left among the Chinese what the Christians have 
alwavs claimed as the great discovery of their Christ, or the concentrated 
essence of their system, that God ultimately rewards the good and pun- 
ishes the wicked, the one without love and the other without hate, and 
that however wicked a man might be, if he only repent, he may be for- 
given. This is a discovery of Brahma, and in Christianity is only 
copied, not original. 

In the beginning of the eighteenth century the Jesuits sent three mis- 
sionaries, who landed at Macao. One of these had medical skill, one 
was an artist, one a civil engineer; none of these pretended to aspire to 
teach religion at first, but only to become celebrated in another calling, 
and gradually become familiar with the language and customs of the 
Chinese, when it might and did become possible to begin to exercise the 
calling for which their superiors sent them out and their success in secur- 
ing the favor of the then ruler of China, " Kanghi," one of the most 
enlightened and virtuous rulers China ever had, was such that many 
mere Jesuits were admitted and begun their crusade in so mild and inno- 
cent a way that their ultimate designs were not for some time suspected, 
and they were practically unopposed for many years, but the continued 
reinforcements of priests, mainly from France, and the want of caution 
of these new fanatics, so alarmed the rulers that their destruction was 
decreed, and they were banished beyond the frontiers in the reign ol 
" Yung Ching," who dismissed them with a lecture in which he clearly 
described to them his opinions in reference to the real object they and 
those who were behind them had, which was no less than " a wish to 
destroy our laws, distract our people, and create a rebellion that will 
give those behind you an excuse to invade and destroy our national 
existence. This is already manifest in the province of Tuhkien, where 
your operations have been allowed. The high officials have already told 
me this, therefore, it is my duty to provide a remedy for the disorder. 
You tell me your law is not a false one. I don't know if it is or not; 
when I find it is, I will destroy your churches and drive you all out of 
my country. If I should send a troop of Bonzes into your country, in 
order to preach their doctrines, how would you receive them? When 
I was a prince, without authority, I clearly saw that my father was being 
deceived by your cunning duplicity, but I dared say nothing, but you are 
not able to deceive me any more or my people; you wish us all to become 
Christians, so we then would be subjects of your kings. The converts 
you have made already recognize nobody but you, and in time of 
trouble they would only listen to 1 you. My sole care is to protect my 
people from intermeddlers from outside, so you are all expelled beyond 
my frontiers." This edict abolished all the missionary success till the 



358 The Skeptic's Defense. 

beginning of this century, when the same scheme as failed in the last 
century has been revived, and the same result, the slaughter and expul- 
sion of the missionaries is now in progress, for that people are deter- 
mined at whatever cost to be rid of the vileness of priests, who are only 
a vile nest of disturbers of the peace, but there is a prospect that military 
force will be used, to make good the saying of " one who came not to 
send peace on the earth, but a sword," meaning by that word force of 
whatever kind, and this is the ulterior intention of all interference of all 
missionaries, to finally overcome and absorb the whole earth, till a uni- 
versal religious despotism of Christianity in some of its forms is realized, 
and this open field furnishes an outlet where the incompetents, who have 
failed to reach the capacity to instruct civilized men, can still operate 
among the savages, if they are willing to risk their lives, and they are 
fanatical enough for that in most cases. A fanatic or enthusiast is con- 
tent to hear one side of an argument, arid from that to theorize and 
develop a system. Now it is certain the human race, or that portion of 
it included as any variety of Christians, have never been made 
acquainted with the original skeptics, who were arrayed against Christ- 
ianity in the formative period of its career, and so the one side^ decreed 
by the majority of a corrupt council, has been all that was permitted to 
be disclosed, for the priests have always destroyed all conflicting argu- 
ments by a process much more practicable than by counter arguments. 
Who has ever seen the arguments that Celsus employed in opposition to 
the chief foundation of the imposition, as it had developed in the second 
century? Origeri's defence is extant, but Celsus's attack has been 
squelched, and mankind have never been permitted to know anything ot 
the history of this imposition but such as the new testament teaches, but 
that Celsus, and presumably many others like him, were distinctly hos- 
tile to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity is well known, and in 
its philosophical views he was a believer, and it is also known Celsus 
wrote at least two books against the Christians, but they have never seen 
the light, and, as the art of printing was not then known, manuscripts 
were never multiplied, and destruction was easy, but so was preserva- 
tion when the majority so decreed; hence we have only one side of the 
controversy, and that the affirmative. Why was it necessary for Origen 
to reply to Celsus at such great length? It was because he was a culti- 
vated and a formidable man, acquainted with the doctrines of the 
Assvrians, the Jews, the Persians, and others which existed before and 
at the time when the new religion was just in embryo, and was welcomed 
then, as it always since has been, by only the lower classes of such as 
arrived at adult age, and were only full grown children in their ability to 
comprehend theological twaddle. All heathen philosophers then, as 



Christianity Intended for the Poor. 359 

now, regard the apostolic teachings dangerous, and destructive of the 
very existence of civilized society, and it is only because the teachings ol 
the Sermon on the Mount, so called, are entirely disregarded, as well as 
the teachings of the apostles, who clamored for having all things com- 
mon, that any civilization is possible. The Christ of the gospels and the 
apostles gathered around them such as they themselves were, the poor 
sinners, the most despised members of human society, and offered them 
pardon, love and sympathy, if they only repent and sin no more. What 
else do Christian priests do now? If they ever secure one who has been 
uninstructed in his early years, they listen to the priest for other motives 
than to be saved from future damnation, and are hypocrites who dare 
not disclose their real skepticism for prudent reasons. He who reads 
these sentences, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth," and " In the beginnning was the Word." is compelled to admit 
that thought is required instead of faith, and theology has so far 
struggled in vain to comprehend one or the other, and always will, but 
science will at some time reach a definite, true solution of the second sen- 
tence, as it has already of the first. The apologetics of primitive Christ- 
ianity was only a bridge to connect Greek philosophy with religion, and 
its twin theology is only a weapon to defend it, but it must also answer 
philosophy as well as defend religion. Can it do this? We shall see. 

I have sometimes felt while tracing the lines which this volume con- 
tains, an apprehension lest in the absorbing interest required to con- 
struct them so as to demonstrate the superiority of science over religion, 
I may have blunted some people's moral perceptions when man is ele- 
vated above matter. Much as I have coveted and still do covet that 
fame which makes the fame of one man, and that man, myself, the com- 
mon inheritance of all men, still I would infinitely prefer that my name 
should pass away with my breath, than that I should transmit to pos- 
terity any portion of that knowledge that the good might neglect to 
exercise and the bad might unscrupulously pervert. 

Human society, in this period of the world's history, is confronted by 
Christianity, such as it is, and it is the implacable foe of society, in fact 
its open enemy, which it must crush, or itself will be crushed, and in this 
case all discussion is reduced to a struggle, and all reasoning to a 
weapon. What must be done in the presence of an irreconcilable enemy? 
Must we enter into controversy with him? No! we must go to war 
with him. Therefore society must defend itself against Christianity, not 
by reasoning with it, but by force. It must not try to refute its doctrines 
and symbols, but repress them. Such a devilish institution as the inqui- 
sition, or, as these holy rascals mildly called it, the " Holy office," in the 
close of the fifteenth century, is the logical consequence of not only the 



3G0 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Roman Catholic, but also of the whole orthodox system, for the church 
as a whole is bound when she has the chance, which she is persistently 
striving for, to bring into operation the inquisition, and the only reason 
now why she does not is because she cannot: for why is this kind of 
repression less necessary now than it was in former times? Is the oppo- 
sition of skeptics or infidels less dangerous? Assuredly not. The rea- 
son must therefore be that the church is weaker. We are tolerated 
because we cannot now be strangled, for power has always been the 
measure of the toleration of that infernal tyrant, the Christian church, 
in all its past history. I ask any reader of this book to excuse a few 
views of the author which he has encountered, and expect he will judge 
it not by some isolated passages, but by its general spirit or intention. 
Any author can only give expression to his thoughts, each of which is 
only true when taken as a whole or with others. A single statement 
perhaps is false, for it expresses only one side, and truth is made up 
sometimes of many untruths. What I have chiefly sought to inculcate 
is extreme hatred to not only the priest, but his systems, for its main 
object is to guide back into the right road some who know not which 
way to go, and who are searching everywhere in vain for an object of 
worship and devotion. 

The want of uniformity in the physical and mental qualities per- 
taining to the different individuals that together compose the human 
family or race, as well as the different national characteristics, also the 
environments and the motives to conduct, that are required to make up 
the wonderful variety or capacity, needs, desires and aspirations, ambi- 
tions and attainments, makes it impossible to invent any system that will 
be adapted in the long run to meet this widelv differing demand. The 
Christian impostors, at the outset of their career as reformers, real or 
pretended, were positive that their particular form of doctrine or belief 
would, without doubt, so impress every adherent of all the different 
forms of idolatry or paganism with which the nations outside of Juda- 
ism, as well as Judaism itself, were supplied, and to which they were 
more or less strongly attached, that these, to the Christian^ false sys- 
tems, would voluntarily, upon the presentation and offer to them of this 
new system, accept and adopt it, and renounce the old one. The dis- 
appointment of this over sanguine expectation would have discouraged 
any prudent and reasonable reformer from pursuing his fanatical and 
unsuccessful crusade, which has been in progress for near two thousand 
years, and which, considering the increase in the aggregate population 
of the world at the beginning of the Christian era and the present time, 
actually has materially diminished in numbers and influence, and has 
long since reached its highest point of success, and will soon disappear, 



The Priests Are Deserving of Punishment. 361 

for it is founded on nothing- better than mythology, fraud, humbug, 
and the grossest deception, and has already long outlived its deserts, 
and when it is abolished the masses of the people will be able to throw 
off the miserable nightmare of fear, as well as the unfounded satisfaction 
of hope, that has so long on the one hand cursed them, and on the other 
deceived them. There ought to be some method devised to severely 
punish those who deliberately and willfully impose so enormously 
wicked and costly deception as any form of religion manifestly is, and if 
there was any real hell more dreadful in its torture than the imaginary 
one the Christian has invented, for all who either neglect or refuse to 
adopt their methods, such a place would be far too good to receive these 
impious rascals who invented and have continued this deception, for no 
other purpose than the unholy one of avarice, or a means by which to 
procure a good fat living, without rendering any equivalent, which to 
any right mind is no better than stealing. This may and most likely 
will sound harsh to both the priests and their ignorant dupes, or those 
who are victims of their criminal deception, but ! another class of inde- 
pendent and unbiased thinkers will welcome and approve any language 
that promises to weaken the grip with which the priesthood hold their 
victims in subjection. 

Every form of religious belief with which the world has been cursed 
had a beginning in the remote past, more or less remote from this age of 
light and knowledge. Many forms are recorded in the histories that are 
accessible to those whose taste and wish for that information incline 
them to investigate the origin and development of these several forms, 
and many others are known to exist, of whose peculiar tenets only the 
mere outline can be known, and that is very imperfect and obscure, and 
although the vast majority of the human race which inhabit the regions 
that are inaccessible to the nations who have the Christian form, adhere 
to these, to us, unexplained and incomprehensible instructions, we 
Christians simply call them heathen barbarians, pity their ignorant and 
abject moral condition, and congratulate ourselves that we are so highly 
favored as to have a revelation directly from the God of all the universe, 
embodying all that is of any value and making the false boast 
that all that is not found in the Christian system is, and must 
necessarily be, spurious and false, consequently of no importance, and 
therefore these heathen and their religions are held in utter loathing and 
contempt by those who were told by the founder of the Christian system 
that they alone were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, gen- 
erating in these self-righteous Christians a superiority, when the reverse 
is the proper designation, for they are morally inferior to any known 
form of religion, as a class or organization. 



362 The Skeptic's Defense. 

Let us examine this claim that the Christian makes, in favor of the 
system to which he adheres, and see on what it is founded, and whether 
it in reality has any foundation better than assumption, and in order to 
do this we have to go back to a period long before the pretended advent 
of Jesus Christ, the alleged founder of the system, who, according to 
the theory adopted by the instigators or inventors of this system of 
humbug and deception, appeared about nineteen hundred years ago. 
The necessity for the advent or appearance of a saviour at all was caused 
'more than four thousand years previous to the actual appearance of the 
redeemer promised ; such promise is alleged by these holy impostors to 
have been made as soon as the fall of Adam into sin, a few days after 
he had been transformed out of a lump of mud into a fully developed 
specimen, morally and physically, of the highest type of humanity that 
has ever existed, made such redemption necessary, and is in these words: 
"' The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head." That is a 
very vague and indefinite promise, but under the circumstances was 
regarded as better than none at all, and, as no time was set for the head 
to be smashed by the seed of the woman, no hardship can be urged that 
four thousand years was allowed the serpent to have his head left whole. 
The failure of this seed to put in its appearance has made the work of 
smashing the head so difficult, that there is great doubt about its ever 
being done, but the smashers are so persistent and confident of success 
ultimately, that if the necessary money is forthcoming, and the effort is 
persisted in long enough, they agree on their part to see it done, not- 
withstanding no progress can be shown to make it even probable that 
airy serious injury will ever be done to the head, or even the tail of the 
allegorical serpent, who caused sin to sprout, grow mature, and bear 
fruit at the beginning of human history. The woman in this foolish 
story did all the damage, therefore the impostors who started this new 
religion had to contrive to' make some other woman repair the damage, 
for it must be the seed of the woman only, not of man and woman, as 
is necessary in all other cases to produce any result. So the lying and 
impossible, absurd and weak story, recorded in the first chapter of the 
gosnel according to Matthew, beginning at the eighteenth verse, and 
also in the first chapter of Luke at the twenty-sixth verse. These two 
statements are somewhat conflicting, but they are both so manifestly 
untrue and contrary to reason and common sense, not to say absolutely 
impossible, that the author of this mess of vile trash, whoever he was, 
must have been surprised and amazed to find any one stupid and igno- 
rant enough not to reject it, as an insult to the intelligence of the most 
degraded of the offscouring of the Jewish people, to whom this story 
was first told. But such as it is, it has found hundreds of thousands of 



The Origin of the Atonement Humbug. 363 

professed believers in the past, and will continue to find thousands more, 
for as long as a hungry set of lazy scoundrels, called priests, of all 
grades, are allowed to prey upon any community, and palm themselves 
off as divinely ordained to teach that this holy book, which is mainly 
made up of such impossible and absurd stories, called miracles to make 
them appear true, is the undisputed, divinely revealed word of God, just 
so long there will be found fools enough to be not only willing but 
eager to receive such teaching, for a full grown child is as much a fool 
when he submits his reason to a designing priest, as one in whom the 
faculty of reason is just beginning to develop. All that portion of the 
people, called Christians, who belong to the Roman Catholic church, 
teach their dupes through the priests of various grades that the mother 
of Christ, who they name the Virgin Mary, conceived a son by force of 
her imagination acting on the generative organs, which they call being 
full of the holy ghost, and that this son was brought into the world in 
the usual way, and after all this had occurred she was still a virgin, and 
so had continued to be, and is at present, a fit object of worship and 
adoration, notwithstanding she had three other sons and* two daughters, 
unless Mark and Luke misrepresent. The Greek Catholics reject the 
idea that the Virgin Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to a child, 
and admit that she afterwards became a wife and mother of other chil- 
dren. All other sects of Christians deny that she was in any sense a 
virgin after her espoused husband discovered her supposed criminal sit- 
uation, but admit that the holy ghost was father to the unborn infant. 
The Jews, who are manifestly in the possession of the best sources of 
information of any of the former, deny the whole story, and boldly assert 
that the whole story told by the evangelists is a downright lie, and are 
able to so prove it to be, having in their possession authentic histories 
of the whole affairs of their nation, and no such mention can be found 
in their histories; but there must be noted one exception. There is in 
Josephus's history, in such copies only as are prepared for sale to circu- 
late among Christians, a short reference to a person in Judea, of the 
name of Christ, who was alleged by the Christians to be their founda- 
tion, but no allusion whatever to this Christ is in the original work 
written in Hebrew and translated into Greek, by Josephus, and all intel- 
ligent Jews of any age have never, either through their prophets or in 
any other way, had any promise, or expectation, or need of any 
Messiah, and that none of their sacrifices ever had any other significance 
than ceremonial observance, to comply with established usage, and there 
was never expressed a necessity, a wish or an expectation of any super- 
natural aid, in any way, considering themselves fully competent to care 
for themselves during this life, and have no wish or expectation of a 
future life. 



364 The Skeptic's Defense. 

The above digression from the subject under consideration seemed 
proper to be made, to understand more fully what is to follow. The 
monstrously absurd and wicked invention of the dogma on which the 
whole of the imposition named Christianity, is founded, which is, that 
in consequence of the disobedience of the mythical first parents of the 
race, the whole race inherited a sinful and corrupt nature, which was 
transmitted to every individual of all generations, making it necessary 
for a redeemer to pay the debt, so as to liberate the real debtor from the 
penalty ; and this was why the system upon which the Jewish system was 
made to depend, upon offering sacrifices to typify an atoning sacrifice, 
to appease an offended creator, who was supposed to be so accommo- 
dating in his disposition, and so self-denying in his generosity, as to 
accept the proposition of his only son to take a journey down to earth, 
to be born of a woman, to live a life of poverty for thirty years, more or 
less, to suffer the torture of crucifixion, to rise from the grave and come 
back to his former home, and all this and much more was indispensable, 
so that one poor, unfortunate sinner, who sinned only for the reason 
that it was not'possible to avoid it, might be saved; for just as much 
humiliation and suffering was indispensable, so that one poor lost sinner 
might be saved, for just as much was required by this scheme to save 
one as to save every individual that has ever or that will ever live, and 
after all this preparation had been made, and the plan had been so far 
completed as to admit of being tested, it was discovered that vast multi- 
tudes of human beings had lived and died for many thousand ages 
before the date assigned by these holy impostors for the transactions 
they record as being the first commencement of time. 

The latest discovery of science makes it necessary to abandon the 
false assumption made in scripture as to the way the creation originated, 
and especially the manner by which the first pair of human animals 
derived their existence, and it has been so far progressed that all the pro- 
gressive theologians are now striving to find a way to harmonize the con- 
flicting and directly contradictory statements of revelation, so called, 
and science, for science is not science without it is capable of proof, 
and revelation is all the more to be called revelation when it is entirely 
destitute of proof, not only, but so impossible as not to be capable of 
belief, mere guess work, hence all this scheme of salvation, so elaborately 
invented, is wholly unnecessary and futile, and all the efforts put forth 
to redeem what was never forfeited, and to save what was never lost, 
have been so much idle and useless labor and expense. But inasmuch 
as there yet remains among all the orthodox sects of Christians a numer- 
ous and strong body of thinkers, whose pecuniary interest, to say noth- 
ing of any higher motive, make it necessary to uphold and defend 



The Priest is a Blind Leader of the Blind. 365 

what has been received and believed in the past to the extent that they 
refuse to examine any and every proposition that in their judgment 
would have a tendency to in any degree weaken and unsettle their con- 
victions, it seems proper to endeavor to show the imposition up in its 
true light, and if possible to bring the system of fraud and deception 
into contempt and ridicule, for there is no need to have any 
respect or any feeling of sanctity or reverence by which this subject has 
always been surrounded. While it is freely admitted that the organiza- 
tions called churches have some use, and some claim to respectful 
treatment at the hands of those that wish to see them abolished, on 
account of furnishing a medium for social intercourse, and an oppor- 
tunity for the display of personal adornments, and a desire of those of 
moderate ability to become conspicuous, on account of an excess of 
zeal to promote and support the various charitable enterprises for the 
temporal benefit of the poor and unfortunate among their fellow mor- 
tals, it still remains an undecided question whether, on the whole, the 
damage done in the dissemination of false instruction, causing a stag- 
nation of all investigation, requiring an unquestioned assent to what 
those who for the time have authority over the source of knowledge, 
regarding a future state, and an enormous outlay of money that other- 
wise would be useful to diminish want and misery, does not more than 
offset all the benefits supposed to be received. The inventors of the fic- 
titious narrative of the events that are recorded in the four gospels are 
unknown, as the utmost research and investigation of all the commen- 
tators that have ever wTitten on this subject cannot give any better solu- 
tion of this question than probability, and the time when these impos- 
tors wrote is still more obscure, but no one of them all claims that any 
one attempted any description of the manner of the introduction of this 
spurious system, without placing the date from one hundred to two hun- 
dred years previous to the life time of the writer, and he writes of these 
events as though he was personally present, and ascertained by actual 
observation and investigation that all these scenes and events occurred 
precisely as the narrative relates, and this ability to so write of events 
long past, by mere invention and imposition, is what these impostors 
called inspiration. A far more reasonable way to account for the 
advent of the son of God on a mission of love, redemption and salvation, 
to a condemned and lost race of mortals, would have been to have had 
him arrive on earth in a fully matured physical body and mature intel- 
lectual development, in full view of all living humanity, and announce in 
a language all could understand, with a voice that could be distinctly 
heard by every inhabitant of earth, his purpose, state his terms, and 
appoint suitable agents to transact such important business, and then 



366 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ascend to his heavenly abode, as he finally did, if the obscure and 
unknown individual who wrote his biography is to be believed, and 
thus have avoided all this humiliation, degradation and suffering. The 
founders of all kinds of spurious religion have begun their career in pov- 
erty and obscurity, for no other would ever desire any religion at all, 
hence all the fictitious and prominent characters included in this narra- 
tive are of this description. The parents of this wonderful being had to 
perform a long journey on foot, for the want of the means to procure 
comfortable transportation, which was necessary for a woman who was 
scon to become a mother, to the national city or capital of the country, 
for the purpose of being taxed, when they had no property subject to a 
tax; both husband and wife must go, when the husband alone was com- 
petent to do all business required to be done, especially as the condition 
of the wife was such that both decency and prudence required her to 
remain at home, and on arriving at an obscure suburb of Jerusalem, 
having no means to procure suitable accomodations, and no friends 
upon which they could call for assistance, this child, of which the holy 
ghost was the father, was deposited in a manger, or feed trough, of a 
stable, where he was visited by a delegation of wise men, with valuable 
presents, from a distant country, who had found this obscure stable in 
an obscure village by the guide of a star, as they asserted, and were 
ready and anxious to worship this miniature God. Matthew records 
that in order to escape the decree of Herod, the order was given to cause 
everv male child under two years of age to be put to death, in order 
that this obscure infant might be included in such destruction, for fear 
he might in time develop into a troublesome rival, to dispute the author- 
ity of the Roman government, and that in order to escape destruction 
his parents fled with him by night into a country called Egypt, over 
which the Roman government had not yet obtained control; but Luke 
says they went back to their home in Nazareth, so there is a disagree- 
ment in inspired record. The commentators excuse these variations, 
which are many in these accounts, by saying that it merely proves that 
these men wrote, each being ignorant that the other had written, and 
so there was a necessity for a variation, for fear that if they wrote alike 
there would be suspicion of collusion ; however, we now lose sight of the 
whole family for twelve years, when they turn up again, on a return 
journey from Jerusalem, again on foot, on account of poverty, and the 
boy Christ being not to be found among the company when three 
days' journey had been made, a return journey had to be made to recover 
the lost child, who was finally found in the temple disputing with the 
physicians, or doctors, as they are called, and asking foolish questions, 
as boys of that age are too apt to do. This is all we hear till the boy is 



The Variations of Inspired Writers. 367 

a mature man, as a Jew is required to be thirty years old before he is 
allowed to teach the people. How strange it seems that such a brief 
outline should be all that inspiration could afford to reveal of so wonder- 
ful and important a being. There is, however, in use among Catholics, 
an aoocraphal new testament, which has miraculous incidents in the life 
of this phenomenal prodigy, which, however, the Protestants reject as 
not inspired, the same as they do the old testament apocraphy, but the 
lack of inspired information concerning the manner this wonderful being 
developed in his progress toward maturity has been in part supplied by 
numerous modern writers, in inventing plausible fictitious theories, 
based on nothing, to give the missing information, and at the same 
time to fill their own pockets with the proceeds of the sale, to a lot of 
silly dupes, of this spurious stuff. The inspired record makes it appear 
indispensable for him, Christ, to make a long journey, to find another 
holy impostor by the name of John, who is called the Baptist. This 
impostor invented the rite of baptism, and put it in operation, and 
although he never professed, or any one for him, to be more than a mere 
man, the son of God considered it to be necessary, in order that he 
might be prepared to resist his satanic majesty, the devil, who he was 
about to encounter in a fierce contest for the next forty days, to be 
emblematically purified, and to have his father, the holy ghost, who had 
left him to care for himself for the last thirty years, again come down 
m the form of a dove, and have his other father, who had been so self- 
denying as to dispense with his companionship all these thirty years, 
endorse him in a short speech, as follows : " This is my beloved son, in 
whom I am well pleased." Now for the encounter with the devil, for 
whom he had to wait, without food or shelter, forty days and nights, 
and how much longer we are not told, but we are told that afterward 
he was hungry, but not being able to eat stones, he must wait till some 
angels, who are always to be expected along when there is an emer- 
gency, arrive ; in the meantime he and the devil climb up on the pinnacle, 
or steeple having a sharp point, of the temple. The account omits to 
state whether the temple was transported fifty miles to this wilderness, 
or whether the wilderness was moved to Jerusalem, but that is immate- 
rial; at all events, he refused to jump off, to see whether gravity would 
bring him down, or whether, like chaff, he would float in the air, so 
that test failed by his refusal to jump. We are not informed how he got 
down, but we next discover him on the top of an exceeding- high moun- 
tain, and as there is no high mountains within a thousand miles, we 
must conclude that a journey was made, or the mountain was moved to 
him, and on his refusing the generous offer of all the kingdoms of the 
world, for the trifling sum of just falling down and worshipping him, 



368 The Skeptic's Defense. 

he declined this splendid offer for the reason that there was no author- 
ity for any one to receive worship but the Lord God, and, instead of 
reminding the devil he could not give away that which was not his, 
allowed him to depart for a season, as Luke has it in his account, after 
he had ended all his temptation, but says nothing about any angels com- 
ing to minister or supply his wants, as Matthew has it; and as his life 
and doings are recorded in the first of the four gospels, it is entitled to 
the preference, where there is a variation of statement of the same trans- 
action, as many such are found, and as the name of Matthew is entitled 
to greater respect, because he was one of the twelve apostles, which the 
other three are not, the other's record of what he had put on record 
must have sufficient variation to avoid suspicion of being mere copyists, 
and also they must needs invent stories of their own. The first instruc- 
tion, or discourse, which is said to have been the words of John the Bap- 
tist, but as that is the foundation of all orthodox Christianity, it must 
have been endorsed by him, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand." What is it to repent? The theological definition is, " to regret, 
to be sorry." Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That 
is a smart sermon for a beginner, conveying a meaning exactly the 
opposite of what was intended, and that is just what the next sermon by 
this preacher, recorded in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of 
Matthew, does, in nearly every other proposition there put forth, which 
will be reviewed in a separate article. The next act in this strange 
drama is the commanding of four men, who he found by the side of a 
small lake, fishing, to follow him, without giving any reason or promis- 
ing any wages, but they were to fish for men instead of fish, a very 
unpromising and unprofitable occupation, as it turned out to be, for 
they were scarcely intelligent enough to catch any fish, and they failed 
entirely to catch any men, for they never did anything but wander 
around the countrv like so many tramps, a burden and terror to the 
whole community, and they finally became so intolerably odious that 
they had to be exterminated by violence, within about three years, and 
when we read the accounts of the outrages they committed, the 
wonder is that there was enough patience to endure the obnoxious 
presence of thirteen unproductive paupers, who most of them had left 
families to be provided for, when they were also receiving gratis a good 
living. It never has occurred to any expositor to attempt to explain 
why Christ had any use for twelve recruits, to do nothing. If he had 
worked at his trade of carpenter, there would have been a use for more 
or less help, but what earthly use there could have been for a company 
of twelve useless, idle loafers, tramping around that desolate, god for- 
saken country, as a sort of body guard to this impostor, can never be 



Why Were Twelve Men Necessary ? 369 

explained. Somebody had to feed, clothe and shelter them, and expect 
no compensation, and a lower and more degraded set of men, according 
as they are described and the calling they had before followed, would 
have been impossible to have selected, and no other class would ever 
pay any attention to Christ during his whole life, and they are a fair 
sample of what has since joined that fanatical, corrupt and wicked body, 
the Christian church. How this impostor came to practice the art 
of healing all manner of disease, and where he obtained the money to 
pay for his education in medical science, has not been revealed. It may 
be assumed with as much propriety as other things connected with this 
subject are assumed, that he was studying medicine during the years of 
seclusion, between twelve, where we seen him asking questions of the 
doctors in the temple, when he deserted his parents, and the age of 
thirty, when we next see him. There never has been any pretence that 
at the beginning of his career he had any miraculous gift, or ever 
received or required any pay, but it is far more reasonable that all these 
pretended miraculous cures and all these parables were the pure inven- 
tions of a set of mongrel Jews, that conspired together to begin a new 
kind of religion after the destruction of Jerusalem and dispersion of 
the remnant of the nation among other nations, making it impossible to 
continue the pure Jewish worship, and then accordingly chose this 
mode and brought forward this fictitious hero, Christ Jesus, who they 
attempted to prove was, on the side of both father and mother a 
pure Jew, and made him both a second Adam to redeem what was lost 
by the first, and a second Moses to give a new code of laws, never 
assuming or even admitting that he was more than human, leaving suc- 
cessive impostors the task of inventing his divine origin, and the intro- 
duction of all this spurious nonsense recorded in the four gospels and all 
other writings, such as Acts, Epistles, Revelations, attributed by the 
majority vote of some later council of later impostors to the authors 
whose name they bear, and are placed before them, and it is of no con- 
sequence who they were, for whoever they were they are of no conse- 
quence, for the whole system is fraud and humbug, and at the close of 
the life of the hero of this monstrous imposition, no progress had been 
made, and no church organization was formed for more than three hun- 
dred years, and up to the present time nothing but the name distin- 
guishes those who call themselves Christians from those who do not. 
It must be a humiliating fact, and no doubt is, for the Christian 
world to see, as they do see, the portions of this earth which in all the 
wonderful events of which any record is found only in his sacred books, 
of both the Jew and the Christian, first the origin of man, next the origin 
of the chosen people of God, and over which they long tyrannized, and 



370 The Skeptic's Defense. 

still later the birth place of Christianity, and where it nourished for a 
brief time, and became so insolent, bold and defiant, the region traversed 
by the apostles, and afterward becoming a tyrannical persecuting power, 
boastful and intolerant to those who refused or neglected to adopt its 
absurd tenets, now and for a long past time in possession of its most 
determined rivals and bitterest enemies, the Mahometans, to the extent 
that it amounts to a perpetual banishment from those shrines considered 
by the whole Christian world as the most sacred spot on the whole 
earth, and to secure the possession of which they have in vain poured 
out vast treasures of money and vast sacrifice of- human life, in seven 
unsuccessful crusades, to recover possession of what superior force had 
deprived them and forced them to abandon, and now merely concede 
them the privilege to temporarily visit, in return for some like privilege 
they get for that privilege, and this whole region again return to its 
primitive condition of semi-barbarism, from which the Christian fondly 
imagined he had rescued it; such a result ought to teach, and would 
teach any but the most fanatical and bigoted set that ever lived, the 
Christian, that their God neither needed or cared for their regard, and 
one would naturally suppose that such want of protective care as this God 
they so faithfully serve and adore, would cause those so situated to with- 
draw their confidence, and refuse to worship such an impartial God, but 
the reverse effect seems to operate in this case, for the Christian nations 
hope to one day be strong enough and sagacious enough to recover from 
the Turks that country, of which they consider the present occupants 
unworthy, and from which they are now banished practically, and to 
which they claim a superior title. 

The truth is, and may as well be stated, and eventually will be 
admitted, that all forms and kinds of religion are spurious, and conse- 
quently a positive damage, viewed from any standpoint that it is possible 
to imagine, and until they are all abolished by the gradual spread and 
adoption of the principles which are involved in the term free thought, 
causing an intelligent and patient investigation of the origin of these 
false systems, and the causes why they have been perpetuated, and the 
total lack of any utility or benefit to be derived from any farther tolera- 
tion, no doubt they will all continue to feebly struggle along, renouncing 
one after another hitherto firmly held, but. now admitted to be errone- 
ous beliefs, 'till finally the whole fabric of imposition and fraud, decep- 
tion and humbug, will tumble into eternal, irretrievable ruin ; and when 
such time arrives every man will hold and maintain his own views on 
religion, the same as he now does on all other subjects, without being, 
as he now is, held up to scorn and contempt if he does not agree with 
some or all forms of Christian belief. 



How the Christian Rf.vf.nue is Secured. Mi 

In order to secure a fund from which to draw a lucrative revenue, 
the clergy of all grades of Christians assume to be the proper persons 
to officiate at the death and burial of all, every one who has sufficient 
importance and sufficient means from which to draw a sum thought to 
be equivalent to the efforts made by such clergyman, and that is regu- 
lated by the success he is able to produce upon the spectators and sur- 
viving relatives, by an appeal to the emotional natures of those who are 
present, and who by reason of their presence are supposed to be in a 
sympathetic frame) of mind, and capable of being wrought upon, and 
this theme is there made to assume paramount prominence, the uncer- 
tainty of life, the certainty of death, and the importance of living in a 
state of preparation to meet what a future state is sure to disclose. 
Another prolific source of revenue is the assumption that the marriage 
ceremony must be conducted by some ordained minister of the gospel, 
to make it either civilly or morally binding, but a more enlightened 
view has in a long protracted contest been taken of the importance of 
this ceremony, and the clergy have been obliged to divide the revenue 
with the civil magistrates, and also admit that the latter form is every 
way as good as the former, and far less expensive. Free thinkers are 
constantly reminded by Christians, and more especially by the hypocrit- 
ical and fanatical priests and ministers, when they officiate at funerals, 
that when they come to the death bed or scene, and are then without the 
Christian hope, they will experience the most fearful pangs of remorse 
and fear, and call upon any who may witness their distress, who can 
pray with any prospect of success, to do so in their behalf, when the real 
truth is that when death is about to be encountered, and the person 
about to die is aware of that fact, and has the ability to communicate 
with those in attendance, no difference is to be perceived in the individ- 
uals so situated. Death is realized by every one, who has any mind at 
all, to be the inevitable destiny of all living things, animal or vegetable, 
and the instinct that is to be met with in all animals operates to cause 
both the desire and the effort on the part of each individual of every 
species to prolong its existence to the utmost limit of possibility, without 
any reference whatever to any future life, and if no religious impostor 
had ever invented any religion that taught the existence of God and the 
devil, heaven and hell, or a future place of happiness to strive for,or place 
of misery to shun, no mortal that has ever lived would have ever experi- 
enced any more either hope or fear, when death had to be met, than the 
mere instinct of dread of physical suffering, which in most 
cases precedes death and which teaches every form of animal to 
prolong his existence as long as possible, and with as much comfort as 
possible. All free thinkers who have succeeded in so far divesting them- 



§1% The Skeptic's -Defense. 

selves of superstition as to reject the idea, of, any God or any future life, 
are entirely destitute of any fear of death, except the mere instinct before 
referred to, and consequently they are under no apprehension of fear on 
the one hand, or hope on the other, perfectly indifferent except to the 
present life. Mere infidels, who have not yet gone as far in unbelief as 
the atheist, have not so far divested themselves of their early and unfor- 
tunate instruction as to feel perfectly sure of their future destiny, and 
are more or less troubled by fear, and in order to gratify some friend 
who is more anxious about their future state than they themselves are, 
sometimes relieve such anxiety by giving expression to some words on 
which the hope of the survivor can rest, and which is alluded to by the 
preacher who manages the funeral exercises, and called- a death bed 
repentance. The same kind of repentance is extorted from the criminal 
who is under sentence of death, and is provided with a spiritual adviser, 
who in most cases is successful so far as to influence the criminal to 
secure the hope of heaven, and leave this world, which he can no longer 
use as a medium with which to gratify the appetites and passions which 
have made it necessary for society, in self-defense, to place him beyond 
the power longer to terrify and injure. This whole miserable device is 
founded on the story of the thief who was said to have manifested peni- 
tence and a desire to be simply remembered by his associate, who was 
on another cross, and who he said had done nothing wrong, when he 
came into his kingdom, having no more idea what that wish signified 
than if he had never had such a wish, and the answer he received had no 
meaning whatever, but the priests of all grades construe it to mean eter- 
nal salvation asked for and received, and that success is used as an argu- 
ment to encourage every criminal and every other person who has spent 
a whole lifetime without so much as one desire to enter upon a life of 
morality and virtue until that life is so near ended that no more satisfac- 
tion can be got by further indulgence of the depraved appetites and pas- 
sions; or in other words give God the bones, when the devil has got all 
the flesh and the marrow out of the bones. Such is death bed repent- 
ance, but it is resorted to and encouraged without any authority, or 
without any value, a mere worthless delusion. The Jew is as serene 
and confident on the death bed, without any faith in Christ, as the 
Christian is with the most abundant supply of that faith. The Mahom- 
etan is as brave to meet death as either of the foregoing. The pagan, or 
as we say, heathen, as any other. On the field of battle one is as brave 
and confident as the other; after the battle the wounded suffer with the 
same fortitude, and die with the same bravery and resignation and hope, 
without any reference whatever to any former belief or want of belief, 
and are as sincerely mourned for by their survivors in the one case as 



A Death Bed Repentance Is of No Value. 373 

the other. The writers of the gospels, whoever they were, in describing 
the closing scenes in the short public career of the hero of the romance, 
who they name Christ, and who, as is shown by himself making several 
allusions to the near termination of his own life, had more reason to 
anticipate the time when this was to occur, and the manner in which he 
should die, than has ever been the case with any other being, and the 
purity, virtue and innocence of his life, as certified to by all his admirers, 
should have caused him to face his own death with more courage and 
resignation than any other person who has ever died, especially as that 
death was indispensable to redeem a lost and ruined race, who could 
be saved in no other way, and an immediate resurrection was clearly 
seen to be certain, and a return to heaven speedy, but what do we see 
instead of all this result? We see the most fearful exhibition of terror 
and dread ever manifested by any mortal of which any account has been 
preserved, for no criminal of any grade of depravity, no philosopher or 
martyr, no Jew, Mahometan or pagan, ever sweat blood when in the 
most extreme peril, and no Christian ever more earnestly and persist- 
ently prayed that his life might be spared than did this pattern that is set 
up for the guide for all mankind to imitate. There is no end to the 
lying statements that Christian ministers make, respecting exclamations 
by infidels who are about to die, when they are said to be filled with 
remorse and apprehension, when none of these statements can be traced 
to any better source than mere rumor, and no importance ought ever to 
be given to any statement, whether of hope or despair, made just pre- 
vious to death in either case, for what is death, in and of itself, when 
stripped of its surroundings such as the sufferings usually preceding 
death, when gradual disease undermines and weakens the vital forces, 
and when a groundless apprehension is felt respecting the future life, 
which in nearly all cases gives rise to the fear and dread which causes all 
these expressions of either hope or despair, when the person who is 
about to die has sufficient mental or physical ability to utter any words, 
which are very rare in proportion to the number who are both uncon- 
scious and indifferent, or whose death is by their own hand, or by that 
of an assassin, or by accident, so that death, like all other human events, 
is inevitable, universal and final, and should be regarded with the same 
composure as the sleep required by the active daily exertions, to invig- 
orate and strengthen the faculties for further exercise, and would be so 
regarded if religion of any kind was nowhere introduced among men. 

The Christian form is no better to either live by or to die by than any 
other, and no amount of begging or solicitude for the eternal welfare of 
any soul has ever made, nor can ever make, the slightest impression to 
change the destiny or alter the condition of any individual of the human 



374 The Skeptic's Defense. 

race that has ever or will ever exist, from what its nature unalterably 
fixed it, and such fixed destiny is to annihilate and extinguish what is 
falsely named soul, when life ceases to animate the body, and both sink 
into oblivion, and become as though they had never been. Such a fate 
abolishes all need of salvation and all anxiety, and dismisses all priests, 
and makes useless all shrines, dispels all fear, extinguishes all hope, and 
places the human where his nature intended him. to be and qualified him 
for, and if the great monstrous humbug of superstition, and the worst 
humbug, deception and imposition of a future life, in which all the mis- 
takes and disappointments of this life could be rectified and adjusted, 
had never been discovered and promulgated, the human animal would 
have no more dread of death than any other animal has, the natural 
desire to prolong existence to its utmost limit and in as much comfort as 
it is possible to reach. What a wonderful motive is held out as an 
inducement to alleviate the pangs and soften the grief, when a near and 
dear friend, child or other relative is taken from the associations which 
have been continued till the ties of friendship have become so strong as 
to give intense temporary grief at the prospect of separation, which 
death is sure to occasion, to be assured that the same ties are to be 
again re-established in a future life, under certain conditions, if such 
assurance was capable of being more than expected or hoped for, but 
when you are told that certain conditions which may and actually do 
exist will forever make the separation final, one is an offset to the other, 
and both are false and of no value, and the only real satisfactory state of 
the mind is to die like the brute, and like him decompose, and have 
neither hope nor fear, for both are unfounded and imaginary, a mere 
chimera invented by the priests to perpetuate the imposition which 
gives them an income, without which they must perish. 

Ever since the beginning of history, and in all probability long before, 
every people about which anything has been disclosed have been in pos- 
session of some kind of religious belief, and such religious belief has 
been the undisputed invention and possession of some one or more who 
were, or were supposed to be, and readily admitted to be, the oracles or 
mediums by or through which this religious system was to be adminis- 
tered, for the benefit, in the first place, of these heaven ordained oracles 
or mediums, by their burdensome exactions of tribute, and finally as a 
means whereby those who applied to these mediums might obtain satis- 
factory hopes and assurances, with reference to their life here and here- 
after. These religions have each and all, so far as have been discovered, 
developed into systems or forms more or less complete, and are for the 
most part all that these people require, and with which they are satisfied, 
and it is nothing but an unmitigated and inexcusable outrage to disturb 



The Missionary Movement An Outrage. 3T5 

or offer to substitute any other form, to supersede the one to which they 
have become accustomed and attached. This form of outrageous inter- 
ference in religious matters is never even attempted by any other 
religion than the Christian. Their anxiety to strengthen and build up 
the latest and most worthless of all systems causes the leaders and man- 
agers to display the utmost activity and pretended solicitude for the spirit- 
ual and eternal welfare of every savage people, and they are also sneaking 
into every open door,and forcing all closed doors to open to their aggres- 
sive missionaries, who, unasked for, thrust themselves upon all they can 
persuade to receive them, who in most cases, when they discover their 
outrageous designs drive them out and close the doors forever against 
them. Every form of religion is nothing better than an unmitigated, 
unnecessary curse upon any people, a fearful drain upon their resources, 
to build and decorate temples, altars and shrines, and support and enrich 
the priesthood, waste uncounted valuable time to attend to useless cere- 
monies and mummeries connected with outward worship, and to get 
a little worthless instruction, and when all is done nothing but the same 
uncertainty is realized that is the case where none of this useless worry is 
had; nothing is, was, or will be ascertained beyond a guess of the des- 
tiny of any individual one hour or moment from the present, and an 
unalterable destiny and impenetrable mystery envelopes the future of 
every mortal that has or ever will live or die, and no amount of faith, 
hope or desire can ever be more than a name, or give more than an 
imaginary prospect of any future event, either here or hereafter ; no one 
has^ever or will ever disclose what is beyond the grave. 

It is evident that the author, in order to be consistent, must not only 
deny the existence of any God, as the phrase is commonly understood, 
and who is universally revered and worshipped by all grades of human 
animals, sometimes called beings, and also his rival, the devil, who is as 
much believed to be a reality by these same beings as that other who is 
named God, is a reality, but must also deny that all forms of religion that 
teach the existence of any supernatural or invisible being, to whom wor- 
ship is either necessary or required, is not only absurd and foolish, but 
also is false and wicked. The word religion, or the emotion of which 
that word is the definition, ought never to have had a place in the ani- 
mal department of the works of nature, any more than it has a place in 
the vegetable or mineral department. They, all emanate from the same 
source, are all subject to the same governing, spontaneous and self- 
propagating natural laws, which in the beginning of the process of crea- 
tion produced the germ from which all life and all inanimate matter 
were developed in the past, and are all sustained and made to conform 
to the condition which is assigned to each department into which matter 



376 The Skeptic's Defense. 

is divided, without the intervention of intelligence, and before any intel- 
ligence was developed, and also before any such a low grade of life was 
possible as would produce motion. But, inasmuch as we find that 
grade of animal life which we call human universally in possession of 
some form of religion, and instinctively, as some writers assert (but 
which is not admitted), worship and reverence an invisible and incom- 
prehensible supernatural being, it is therefore inferred there must be a 
sufficient cause to produce such an effect, the adherents and 
devotees of that system, which like all others, is false, regard 
every other besides theirs as spurious and pernicious, and the same is 
true of every other false religion. There is not, and in the nature of 
things, there never can be, any uniformity among the different races and 
tribes into which the human animal is divided, as long as the conditions 
and circumstances under which they are situated are without precise 
uniformity, and as no human intelligence is able to ascertain what would 
be the most desirable environment for himself even to make him satis- 
fied and contented, much less can any amount of supposed superior 
judgment dictate to any other mortal anything better than experiment. 
It cannot with much certainty be determined what is regarded by other 
nations and peoples than the one to which any individual himself 
belongs, as the best form of religion to give the required satisfaction, but 
no other than the Christian ever attempts to interfere with the private 
judgment of his neighbors unasked, but the Christian fanatic is never 
satisfied to let anybody alone, but as far as possible, under the false 
impression or assumption that he alone is wise enough to instruct every 
other person, and impudent enough to interfere without invitation with 
what is none of his concern, under the false impression that it is a duty, 
and all this is the universal characteristic of all grades of Christians, and 
for a very apparent reason, which is that it is the only way any impres- 
sion can be made, for no one will ever or ever has considered it of 
enough importance to as much as desire to become a Christian until, 
when overcome by entreaty or appeal, consent to be identified with such 
a rascally set as the church of Christ the world over includes among its 
members. 

The invention, by the first set of impostors who founded the nucleus 
which has since developed into the Christian church, of the system of 
proselytism, which is now known as the missionary enterprise, and has 
in process of time become thoroughly organized, was a device requiring 
a vast sum of money to enable any one of the various branches of the 
church to outdo the others, and penetrate wild and inhospitable coun- 
tries to introduce the Christian religion, and overthrow that by which 
these ignorant people had lived hitherto with satisfaction, for the reason, 



The Christian Hypocrite the Meanest Man. 377 

as they assert, that the souls of these degraded people might be saved and 
conducted to the Christian's heaven, and thus escape the Christian's hell, 
when this whole scheme was merely one of robbery and extortion, to 
collect money to keep the whole fabric of fraud and imposition at home 
from sinking into its deserved oblivion and ruin, and no missionary ever 
received a dollar so collected except to fit him out and pay his passage 
to the port of destination, when he was required to draw his pay what he 
had, from the people among whom he forced his unasked for services, 
and no one of all the vast army of missionaries was able to make any 
impression on any but the lowest grades of intellect, and get more than 
a poor living. 

While it is freely admitted that some individuals can be found 
included in the Christian church, and also in every kind of church, who 
are every way worthy of imitation, as being an example for others to 
follow, it is denied that they are made so by such association, and are 
no better than can be found outside of such church in as large a pro- 
portion relatively, but on the other hand the contemptibly meanest man 
on earth is the Christian hypocrite, and they are far more numerous 
relatively than are those who are outraged and defiled by association 
with such vile wretches, as these same hypocrites are shown to have 
been when detected, as a few only of them ever are, because the cloak of 
a false religion under which they operate conceals them from suspicion, 
and when detected excuses and mitigates their crimes, and provides a 
way of escape from the wrath to come, through repentance and faith, 
and they can point to the case of the thief on the cross, who sought and 
obtained remission and forgiveness when life was nearly extinct. These 
vile wretches seek and obtain admission among what is commonly but 
erroneously thought to be a more respectable company of associates 
than those are from whom he outwardly has separated himself, by pre- 
tending to be regenerated, or born again, caused in all cases by emo- 
tional excitement, produced by magnetic or sympathetic emotional 
power of the individual to which he has been persuaded to listen. The 
scheme which the orthodox Christian alone, of all the different organiza- 
tions that are included among those nations who are called Christians, 
has invented as an excuse for maintaining and propagating some pecul- 
iar unimportant dogmas, which he has named regeneration, or a new 
birth, so indispensable to salvation that no one of all the vast number 
who have never heard of Christ, or of those who have heard of him, but 
have not believed on him in a certain prescribed way, are all now in an 
endless hell of torment, has operated so diametrically opposite to the 
manner which the inventors of this humbug would expect it to operate/ 
as to cause, instead of any increase of piety and holiness among those 



378 The Skeptic's Defense. 

who profess to have been regenerated, that a constant diminution of 
numbers, and a constant increase of wicked rascals, who are in fellow- 
ship with .such bodies of Christians, that very little dependence is now 
put upon that resource by which to fill the gaps that are constantly 
being made by death and desertion. It now begins to be perceived by 
a few of the most liberal of the fanatical bigots who are leaders of the 
rank and file that the great mistake of all past theology has been made , 
by the false statement put forth in that, to them, sacred and holy book, 
which they name the Holy Bible, which asserts in a positive statement, 
after the absurd and lying manner in which mart and woman originated, 
another lie of greater absurdity, to account for the origin of evil or sin, 
by eating certain forbidden or prohibited fruit, being instructed to do so 
by a serpent, or as we call it a snake, and that violation of a previous 
command and admonition of another being, who they had never seen, 
but had merely heard his order and threat, but, as far as is related, had 
no way to ascertain that the voice they first heard proceeded from any 
source superior to the serpent, and that simple act of disobedience, 
without any intentional or willful disregard of such order, but merely 
a natural wish or desire to be made aware of what ingredients the fruit of 
this tree of knowledge was composed, acted on the advice of this serpent, 
who, having vocal organs, they could hear him converse in a language 
familiar to them, and also could see him, and who assured them in the 
most positive manner that the orders they had received was nothing more 
important than advice, and that such advice was bad, and they, or the 
woman, who was first conversed with, was by following such advice 
never to know any more than they already knew, and the knowledge she 
then had was of no value, and the advice he gave had every appearance 
of being, and actually was, of greater value than the former advice to 
refrain from eating. Now, as foolish and wicked as such a statement 
ought to- have been discovered to be when it was first invented, by 
nobody knows who, or when, it has taken the wisdom of the whole 
human race who have ever had this Bible, more than six thousand years 
to produce a single one of all the vast number who have lived and died 
up to the present time, to produce one doubt as to its truth or its value, 
except by those who entirely reject it as spurious and false, and not only 
is the foregoing admission, shameful as it is to have to make such admis- 
sion, a true one, but it is also true that on this stupid and wicked lie has 
been built the whole system, which has fastened itself on ail the Christian 
nations of the earth in which Christianity is an organized force, with 
such a firm grasp, that most likely another two thousand years will be 
required, before those who are directly interested to have this state of 
things remain as it now is, will be so far overcome by the demonstra- 



The Atonement Scheme oE No Value. 379 

tions of science as to be obliged, on account of those who are now relied 
on to support this useless set of paid impostors becoming enough 
instructed in the demonstrations of science to withhold the means to 
support this useless humbug, called the Christian religion, when it must 
die for the want of the means of subsistence, for it is a notorious fact 
that those who are employed in the various grades of ecclesiastical 
administration of the affairs of this monstrous system, in all its depart- 
ments, is an inexhaustible drain upon the resources of any community, 
without rendering any valuable return, but only results in a positive dam- 
age to the community in general, and to each individual in particular. 

The scheme of salvation, through or by means of a crucified redeemer, 
which is the foundation on which that scheme is built, has no place in 
that system, unless there was a previous necessity for such salvation, by 
reason of some inherent defect in human nature, that could not be reme- 
died without resorting to such a monstrously unreasonable way as the one 
invented by the set of impostors who first introduced this wicked and 
cruel scheme, and brought into view a fictitious victim, by whose death 
this whole defect would be remedied, or at least atoned for, and there 
was no previous necessity for any atonement unless the fall of the first 
human pair, before any increase had begun, actually went through the 
precise experience, just as it is recorded in Genesis, and they never went 
through that experience unless they were created in the precise way or 
manner there described, and they were never created in that manner, nor 
at that time, as science is now able to prove; and revelation, as the Bible 
is called, is not able to prove, but only assert, and none of the best minds, 
and also none of the best scholars, now even pretend to place any reli- 
anoe upon any of the mythical and improbable statements, as being any 
more reliable than a dream, and when so much is depending on accuracy 
as the eternal salvation of the souls of the whole human race in all time, 
is made to depend on absolute accuracy of statement, and when such 
accuracy is guaranteed by an appeal to divine direction, the conse- 
quences of failure have the effect to destroy any system based on these 
impossible statements. No variety of religion could ever have been 
invented, and none could have ever been successful, if it was not so 
obscured by mystery as to require a privileged class of experts to at 
least partially explain these mysteries, and this class has been divided 
and subdivided into grades, having more and greater authority, as these 
grades are removed above the ordinary average of intellectual capacity 
of the individuals, who adhere to stay of the various sects into which the 
Christian, Mahometan or pagan world is divided, and these experts 
derive their authority from a .superior authority, constantly growing into 
a higher grade, till it reaches the supreme authority, who is to decide all 



380 The Skeptic's Defense. 

questions and mysteries that exceed the ability of inferior grades to com- 
prehend or explain. This intellectual machinery is so complicated and 
extensive, among all forms of religions, that no person not an adherent 
of any particular form can comprehend the system, except in a general 
way, and no adherents of any of these systems are allowed to understand 
more than the simplest rudiments of such system at first, but when they 
are advanced, and are not too forward to need restraint, these mysteries 
are gradually explained, and when the novice has been thoroughly 
tested, and his sincerity and ability has been ascertained by those who are 
his instructors, so as to justify an examination by a higher grade of eccle- 
siastics, and that grade reports to a still higher one, then the novice has 
developed into maturity, that entitles him to be initiated into com- 
munion and fellowship with those that have previously been put through 
that preparatory discipline, and then what does he get as a reward for all 
this? In the Christian orthodox, if he was converted under Baptist 
influence, he must submit to immersion of the whole body in water in 
public, after arriving at adult age, and after making public announce- 
ment that he is converted from his former practice of inherent sin to a 
practice of its opposite, a holy life, and this immersion is obligatory. If 
the novice seeking admission into fellowship with a Presbyterian or 
Congregational church has had water applied by an ordained minister 
in infancy, in no other way than mere sprinkling of the forehead, that is 
sufficient, but if not so applied the adult must then submit to this cere- 
mony, and this must, as in the former case, follow an announcement of 
renunciation of his former life and an acceptance or belief in their creed, 
and a like process is obligatory in the Methodist, with some unimportant 
variations he must go through a mock ceremony in public, and this in all 
cases is the initiation to the mysteries that are to follow, and this process 
is the first and most simple mystery; but, simple as it is, it is only an 
emblem of purity, and no one of all the vast number that have submitted 
to it, and thus got admission into a Christian church have ever perceived 
the slightest effect on the moral character or on the outward life of any 
individual, and he himself is as far from comprehending its value or sig- 
nificance as he was before all this rigmarole, and will forever so remain. 
The next and greater mystery he encounters is the communion, or par- 
ticipation of the Lord's supper, another emblem, which consists in meta- 
phorically eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the son of God, or 
Jesus Christ, who was crucified, as they assert, to make salvation pos- 
sible. The Catholic hierarchy, or ruling power, have arrived, after many 
hundred years of discussion, to the point of progress that they are able to 
maintain and enforce the doctrine of transubstantiation, or the real, lit- 
eral, actual body in the consecrated wafer, which they give to the sinner 



The Soul of Man or of a Brute. 3&1 

after he has confessed his sins to the priest, and received absolution of 
the son of God, and the wine, which they withhold from the same com- 
municant, but drink it themselves, is his real blood; but the Protestant is 
far more consistent, and nearer following* the directions which the new 
testament describes is the way this observance must be regarded, if 
regarded at all, for there is not the slightest reason to suppose that there 
was any intention to make any use of this incident, more than any other 
in his life, and the utmost significance it ever was intended to have, if 
any, by those who first invented this absurd ceremony, was as an 
emblem or remembrance of the sacrifice made to procure salvation. All 
this unmeaning mummery has never been explained, and never will be, 
for it has not produced the slightest effect on the moral character or on 
the outward life of any person, and never can, for it is nothing but a 
mockery, a mere human device, without either divine authority or sanc- 
tion, but an unexplained mystery, and from one to another these great 
pretended mysteries are unfolded, till they finally become absolutely 
bewildering, and often drive the honest, simple victim to suicide or 
insanity, and on the other hand those that are too smart and intelligent 
to be made dupes of are either developed into the most dangerous class 
of criminals the world can produce, or else the most consummate hypo- 
crites and impostors, to continue from age to age the same system of 
fraud and deception, and as this is known to be the system now in use in 
Christian lands, it is reasonable and proper to conclude that a like sys- 
tem is in use in other religions, with variations to adapt these cere- 
monies to the conditions that are peculiar to the various races and tribes 
that together compose the human family, and furthermore, all this use- 
less ceremony has its root, and is the product of nothing better or more 
substantial than a baseless assumption, impossible to verify, and too 
improbable to be worth examination or refutation, and is only entitled to 
denial, but it must be admitted it is still powerful enough to hold in its 
grasp, so unyielding and tenacious, substantially the whole human race, 
for no other reason than that it professes to be able to reveal to mortals 
what is beyond this life, and there is not, and there never was, and there 
never will be, a living being that can with anything better than possi- 
bility foretell what another moment beyond the present will disclose, but 
the ability to ascertain the fact (as it is only assumed there is such a 
fact) that the human animal has a soul differing in kind from any other 
animal all rests upon another unfounded assumption, that the Bible on 
that question is true, and the truth of the Bible rests on another more 
than unfounded assumption, a downright lie, and well known to be such 
by the wicked wretches who were the authors or inventors of that lie, 
that God revealed this knowledge of the immortal soul of man when the 



§82 The Skeptic's Defense. 

breath of life was breathed by this God into the nostril of this clay image, 
afterwards called man, when by that process he became a living soul, 
when he was only a living body, if anything at all but the same lump of 
mud he was before, and all the various opinions and counter opinions of 
all the critics and commentators that for nearly four thousand years 
have, with the utmost patience and assiduity, endeavored to find some- 
thing better and more substantial than mere assumption, and wholly up 
to this time without success, till at last the whole effort is now aban- 
doned, and the greatest and best scholars and the theologians have over 
their signatures, and orally in public, declared that the Bible is a mere 
human production, without any better right to claim for it inspiration 
than any history has, or any better claim to be considered either a 
teacher of a high grade of morality, or to be regarded prophetic, than 
any ancient writing or mythology of an ancient philosopher or moralist, 
but the manner in which this imposition is guarded, and the precautions 
adopted to keep the deception from being discovered and exposed, is 
worthy of an extended description, for nothing is of greater importance 
than for the perpetrators of any kind of humbug and deception from 
being discovered and exposed, and this precaution increases in intensity 
as the discovery develops opposition strong enough to demand revision 
of former undiscovered inconsistencies. The detestable group of mon- 
strous, wicked, false doctrines that form the foundation of all the ortho- 
dox churches, were produced by some one or more fanatical impostor, 
such as Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and others similar to them, in making 
what in their time was considered a new discovery, and their associates 
and successors approved and elaborated such new discovery, and after 
more or less hesitation and modification accepted and incorporated such 
new discovery, and started what in process of time became a new sect, 
with a creed which distinctly defined and prescribed, by the highest 
authority of the ecclesiastical body then available, what should be the 
belief and teaching of every one who should be permitted to give 
religious instruction in public or private. Justification, Adoption, Sanc- 
tification, Regeneration, Election, Predestination, Foreordination, 
Immortality, Resurrection, Eternal Infant Damnation, and much other 
equally preposterous and unimportant trash to all the outsiders, and 
absolutely mysterious and unexplainable to an insider, but insisted on as 
indispensable to be not only assented to by an aspirant of the right to 
become an instructor of the lower grades, by whom he expected to be 
employed, and from whom he might receive wages sufficient to support 
himself and family, and give no return of any intrinsic value. The 
first elaborate creed that was made after the reformation inaugurated by 
Luther, and continued by Calvin and others, was contrived at Westmin- 



The Creed a Human, Wicked Contrivance. 383 

ster, about three hundred years ago, by a convention of the most bigoted 
fanatics and unmitigated religious rascals that ever disgraced the Christ- 
ian name, who were in constant session more than seven years, and the 
final result was the Westminster confession of faith, on whose absurd 
and wicked dogmas is erected the Presbyterian church as we now 
have it. This confession was formulated after prolonged and earnest 
debate, and many mutual concessions, and transmitted to successive 
generations in two forms, called the longer or larger catechism, and the 
shorter or smaller catechism. The long catechism was for the use and 
instructions of students who were aspiring to become ministers of the 
gospel.. The shorter catechism was for Sunday-school teachers and 
parents to instruct their children, and other illiterate, weak minded 
people, who were from time to time brought within their influence. 
Both of these have survived and are in full force at the present time, 
without the slightest modification being made to any of the horrible doc- 
trines put forth and adopted by all Presbyterians from its first introduc- 
tion, two hundred and fifty years ago, till very recently, when there has 
sprung up in that most respectable body an urgent and determined 
demand for a revision of the creed so long satisfactory, and the elimina- 
tion of many of the most repulsive doctrines now held. In order that 
no mistake and no want of uniformity should be possible, the instigators 
of this scheme invented an auxiliary .scheme, through which this mess of 
stuff called doctrine should be filtered or purified, and this machinery is 
named Theology, a Greek word signifying the science of God, and in 
process of time secured by means of the generosity of some rich and 
credulous dupe, who could be persuaded during life to provide in the 
disposition of his wealth, to take effect at his death, to leave by will or 
devise a sum sufficient to found and endow theological seminaries in the 
orthodox denominations of Christians, or monasteries in the Catholic 
church, and place them in charge of those who they could safely rely 
upon to instruct those who, upon a rigid examination, were found 
worthy to enter these preparatory mental gymnasiums,to be put through 
a course of instruction lasting four years; after having received, before 
making such application for admission, a four years' course of collegiate 
mental discipline and instruction, and receiving a diploma or certificate 
from such college, and in addition giving the required proof of genuine 
conversion and of membership in the denomination of which this semi- 
nary is the exponent, and being of mature age and free from physical dis- 
ability, giving unreserved approval and assent of the creed in which they 
are to be instructed, and furnishing the required funds to reimburse the 
trustees, and allow a liberal profit to such trustees, so as to make suffi- 
cient income to increase the facilities, and after a four years' course of 



384 The Skeptic's Defense. 

discipline and instruction are completed, a solemn oath is required that 
they will always maintain, explain, uphold and enforce the peculiar doc- 
trine and mysteries into which they have been initiated, as long as life 
and strength permit; then another diploma issues, after being signed by 
the proper authority, and is delivered to the graduate, and that is his 
passport or recommendation to a lower grade of ecclesiastical authority, 
by whom the graduate, on application, is ordained or set apart, and 
ready to be employed to instruct in religious humbugs to such an ignor- 
ant and credulous set of people as he can secure, and then such 
position is secured, and a trial of ability satisfies the people over whom 
he is expected to preside, another set of inferior ecclesiastical humbugs 
install him into the so-called sacred office of pastor or teacher, and all 
this process is indispensable before any application for employment can 
be considered, and even after all this rigmarole has been gone through 
with, and the position is secured, the victim is closely watched, and the 
moment he is discovered to deviate from the creed to which he has 
sworn allegiance, he is first reprimanded, if he persists he is admonished, 
if refractory he is disciplined, if incorrigible he is expelled, his source of 
income is dried up, and he must seek employment in some other avoca- 
tion, if he is not sufficiently able to defy any authority which he has by 
this time discovered to be unauthorized and worthless, and concludes to 
depend on his own judgment, and accept such remuneration as he can 
get from those who adhere to him and are satisfied with his instructions. 

The foregoing is substantially the process in use in every branch of the 
Christian church, and is the way the merciless grip has been applied to 
every individual who has been authorized to preach the gospel to civil- 
ized or savage men since theology was first invented and creeds made, 
and there is not the least prospect that the near future will see any devia- 
tion from the foregoing complicated system. 

It never has been known to any except the faithful who are in. the 
secret, and who have faithfully kept the secret, that all the theological 
institutions in this country, if not in the world, are founded and endowed, 
as has been previously described, by some rich dupe, who has yielded to 
entreaty so persistent as to be obliged to comply, but has in every case 
obliged the applicant to accept such gift with the condition. that as soon 
as any deviation from a certain manner in which he directed the institu- 
tion founded by his generosity should be conducted, or any departure 
from the theology approved by him, should occur, the fund itself would 
be forfeited, and such conditions make it impossible for any revision of 
any creed on which every one of these institutions are founded; and 
when, as in the case of Andover, the civil law is invoked to pay salaries 
by compulsion which have been earned by its professors, who are 



The Christian Sabbath An Invention. 385 

accused of heresy by the trustees, who assert they hold and teach unau- 
thorized doctrines, if a decision is rendered sustaining the professors, and 
directing- their pay and reinstatement, down goes the great and vener- 
ated institution, the Andover Seminary, that will be destroyed simply 
because those in charge refused to allow the professors who desired to 
do so, to teach that salvation by the atonement or sacrifice of Christ 
could be extended to such in a future life as had in this life not been 
offered such salvation ; and such will be the fate of the Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary if any revision of the Presbyterian creed, made two 
hundred and fifty years ago at Westminster, is permitted, as is now 
demanded by a large and determined class of young ministers, who 
begin to perceive that error can no longer be successful when it is dis- 
covered and exposed. 

Every form of religion has found it necessary to invent means to teach 
in a wholesale manner its simplest and also most intricate mysteries, and 
for that purpose only has the imposition of the Sabbath day been estab- 
lished among such of the human race as have had any por- 
tion of the Bible, and although the race had managed to subsist and 
prosper for two thousand years or more before the Jewish religion was 
invented without any Sabbath day, or without any religion whatever, as 
soon as that form had reached sufficient development as would permit 
the introduction of law, the arch impostor who invented that monstrous 
system of fraud and deception pretended to have business on Mount 
Sinai, and when time enough had elapsed to enable him to prepare the 
laws, and engrave them on a marble slab, which was prepared before- 
hand, so as to make the people believe God had done this work, when no 
one up to that time among the common people ever had seen any writ- 
ing, and no one but himself could read what was written, and that mess of 
rubbish called the ten commandments has been transmitted to the pres- 
ent time, and is still in force as much as in any former age, and contains 
all the authority there ever was for observing one day of the week more 
than another among the Jews, but the Christian disregards the seventh 
day, and without any authority, or even giving any reason worth 
naming, has substituted the first day of the week as Sunday, by the false 
statement that the crucified Christ rose from the grave on the first day 
of the week, when, unless the account of that scandalous transaction is 
itself a lie, the dead body of Christ was in the grave only two nights and 
one day, notwithstanding he himself repeatedly asserted that he would 
do precisely as the prophet Jonah had done, when he remained in the 
whale's belly three days and three nights. These accounts are both 
stupid lies, and a disgrace to their author, whoever he was, and a still 
greater disgrace to any intelligent human being, to consent to be 



386 The Skeptic's Defense. 

imposed upon by such silly twaddle as this. The inventors of the Sab- 
bath day had nothing but a selfish object in pretending to be so disinter- 
ested for the physical well being of dieir dupes, for in one place, the 
fourth commandment, in reference to the reason they give 
as why all men should refrain from labor was for in that 
day God rested from the creative work, and in another place in Deu- 
teronomy, the reason is given because that was the day ye were deliv- 
ered out of the hand of the Egyptians. The Jews of our day deny their 
ancestors were ever in Egypt as slaves at all, and there consequently is, 
nor never was,any greater authority or reason why any day was any more 
sacred than another, greater than what human laws are able to compel 
obedience to,so that the priestly impostors might fasten their impositions, 
and from time to time increase such imposition by adding more and 
greater humbugs, as the development of mankind made each successive 
age more capable than their predecessor to invent, till at last they have 
become intolerable, and signs are present that give future generations 
some reason to hope that religion, which only has to do with a future 
life, will be abolished, and morality, which has only to do with the pres- 
ent life, will take its place. The sanguinary struggles that always take 
place, when any form of religion to supersede the form already in use 
among any given people, have caused vastly more bloodshed and misery 
in the past than all other causes combined, for it rouses into activity the 
lying, corrupt set of rascals who invented the former religion, to defend 
and keep alive the means by which they have been able to thrive and 
spread, and endeavor to make permanent and universal that which had 
never any value, but was a fruitful source of revenue, to enable the 
priesthood of various grades to impose one deception after another, 
and increase their income as avarice was stimulated in proportion as 
the means to satisfy it were forthcoming. It must not be inferred that 
the denunciations in the foregoing statements apply with equal force to 
all who are connected with such corrupt bodies, but none of these state- 
ments are too strong to describe the inventors and leaders in the decep- 
tion, and the crime grows less odious as the successive grades of author- 
ity are reached, till it is to be presumed, and is freely admitted, that many 
who are the most sincere and honest, who have been made victims of 
this deception, do not see that they have been imposed upon till later in 
life, and when it is gradually revealed to their more mature experience 
that more or less doubt is admissible, and doubt gives place to convic- 
tion, and conviction to a desire to abandon the calling upon which they 
and their families have depended for the means of support, they prefer 
to become only mere hypocrites, and pretend to still believe what they 
do not believe, rather than after all the sacrifice of the time and the 



The Neglect of the Bible by Christians. 387 

money which was spent in preparation to obtain this lucrative situation 
should be given up, and they, by the degrading act of excommunication, 
be made ineligible for further service in the calling to which they have 
dedicated their former life, and also severing many social ties, which 
have become too strong to admit of giving up for a mere abstraction of 
no value to any one. Infidels never can organize or form any creed, 
for no two are agreed on any given question relating to a future life, but 
they are all of one mind in general agreement, to endeavor by ridicule 
and opposition to undermine the Bible as a divine inspiration or revela- 
tion, and instruct the young to shun the Bible, and all those who found 
their systems on its foolish and untruthful statements, and, in conse- 
quence of the impression already made by the few infidels who are bold 
enough to come out and openly declare their infidelity, it is fast losing 
its former stronghold on the masses of the people of any community, 
who, although they are supplied with copies,and are permitted and urged 
to read it, scarcely ever open it from one month to another, and it is now 
very rarely the case that any person who is of average intelligence on all 
worldly or secular subjects, on being questioned as to their knowledge 
on the most familiar and simple question of Bible history or narrative, 
can give anything but the most lamentable display of ignorance, 
and this ignorance extends to those who are selected to teach in the 
Sunday-school,and obliges those who are competent to instruct the aver- 
age teacher to give such weekly instruction to the teachers to prevent 
erroneous instruction being given, and this humiliating confession is the 
main reason why such poor success is realized in making any lasting 
imoression on the children's mind, which can be made to disappear in a 
small amount of such opposite instruction, which the most illiterate infi- 
del is always ready to give, to neutralize any of the weak, silly trash 
which the most gifted Sunday-school teacher can give. Were it not 
that it would be too disgusting to any right minded man to do so con- 
temptible an act, it would be a revelation to stand by and listen to the 
average Sunday-school teacher attempt to instruct the average pupils. 
The author himself was once for two years a teacher in two Sunday- 
schools on every Sabbath, and was much more competent than the 
average, and I hesitate not to say that the impression I made was so 
imperceptible that a microscope could not reveal it, in any other direc- 
tion than to cultivate and strengthen superstition, in the form of rever- 
ence for the Sabbath, the Bible, the church, and the ordinances thereof, 
and that I now see was a damage which I hope in some degree to repair 
in the volume now drawing to a close, as well of the life of him who is 
the writer thereof. At my time of life, which has been a busy one, when 
physical work was beyond my strength, I was averse to sitting in idle- 



388 The Skeptic's Defense. 

ness, when there was a congenial work that I felt I could do. I wanted 
to earn a noble reputation, that will survive long after I have been con- 
signed to my inevitable destiny, hence my ambition was to accomplish 
some work in such a manner that some of my successors will proclaim, 
" That man has not lived in vain," and if my name is not carved on mon- 
umental marble, let it be indelibly stamped on the generations yet to be 
born ; but facing the loneliness of my remaining short period of life, I do 
wholly resign that worthless hope with which the Christian with a 
golden thread embroiders his fanciful future existence, and am content 
with the same fate that all living things will and ever have experienced, 
whether human or other animal, indiscriminate and utter annihilation. . 

THE END. 



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